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The Other Girls

LONDON : PRINTED BY

BPOTTISWOODB AND CO., NBW-STBEET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STRBEr'

The Other Girls

MRS. T. D. WHITNEY

author of
'hitherto' *jve girls' etc.

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE

CROWN BUILDINGS, i88 FLEET STREET

1873

PREFACE

* Wait until you are helped, my dear ! Don't touch the
pie until it is cut ! '

The old Mother, Life, keeps saying that to us all.

As individuals, it is well for us to remember it ; that
we may not have things until we are helped ; at any rate,
until the full and proper time comes, for courageously and
with right assurance helping ourselves.

Yet it is good iox people, as people, to get a morsel — a
flavour — in advance. It is well that they should be im-
patient for the King's supper, to which we shall all sit
down, if we will, one day.

So I have not waited for everything to happen and
become a usage, that I have told you of in this little story.
I confess that there are good things in it which have not
yet, literally, come to pass. I have picked something out
of the pie beforehand.

I meant, therefore, to have laid all dates aside ; esjpe-
cially as I found myself a little cramped by them, in re-
introducing among these * Other Girls ' the girls whom we
have before, and rather lately, known. Lest, possibly, in
anything which they have here grown to, or experienced,
or accomplished, the sharply exact reader should seem to
detect the requirement of a longer interval than the al-

vi PREFACE

manacs could actually give, I meant to have asked that it
should be remembered, that we story-tellers write chiefly
in the Potential Mood, and that tenses do not very
essentially signify. It will all have had opportunity to be
true in eighteen-seventy-five, if it have not had in eigh teen-
seventy- three. Well enough, indeed, if the prophecies
be justified as speedily as the prochronisms will.

The Great Fire, you see, came in and dated it. I could
not help that ; neither could I leave the great fact out.

Not any more could I possibly tell what sort of April
days we should have, when I found myself fixed to the
very coming April and Easter, for the closing chapters of
my tale. If persistent snow-storms fling a falsehood in
my face, it will be what I have not heretofore believed
possible, — a white one ; and we can all think of balmy
Aprils that have been, and that are yet to be.

With these appeals for trifling allowance, — leaving the
larger need to the obvious accounting for in a largeness
of subject which no slight fiction can adequately handle,
— I g\y^ you leave to turn the page.

A. D. T. W.

Boston: ilfarcA, 1873. ,

CONTENTS

— ^ —

CHAPTER

PAGE

Spilled Out. '

//.

Up-stairs

///.

Two Trips in the Train . . . .

Ninety-nine Fahrenheit . . . .

Spilled out-again

A Long Chapter of a Whole Year

VIL

Bel and Bartholomew . . . .

VIII,

To help : somewhere . . . .

IX.

Inheritance

106

Fillmer and By lies

113

Christofero

123

XII

Letters and Links

129

XIII

Rachel Froke^s Trouble

• 137

XIV.

Mavis Place Chapel ....

140

XV.

Bonny Bowls

146

XVI

Recompense

. 160

XVII

Errands of Hope ....

. 168

XVI IL

Brickfield Farms ....

. 176

XIX.

Blossoming Ferns ....

. 196

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XX. 'Wanted' 201

XXI. Voices and Visions 210

XXII. Box Fifty-two 222

XXIII. Evening and Morning : The Second Day . 235

XXIV. Temptation 241

XXV. Bel Bree's Crusflde : The Preaching . . 249

XXVI. Trouble at the Scherman^ . . . .257

XXVII. BelBreis Crusade: The Taking of yerusalem 263

XXVIIL 'Living In' 273

XXIX. Wintergreen 284

XXX. Neighbour Street and Graves Alley . . 292

XXXI. Chosen: and called 300

XXX I I. Easter Lilies 312

XXX III. Kitchen Crambo 318

XXXIV. What Nobody could help .... 332
XXXV. Hill-Hope 343

The Other Girls

4 THE OTHER GIRLS

' I don't know what you mean, Mr. Argenter,' she said,
with some quiet coldness.

' I mean, I know how she takes other girls to ride ; she
sets them down at the small gray house^ — the hot^se without
any piazza or bay window^ Michael / ' and Mr. Argenter
laughed. That was the order he had heard Sylvie give on6
day when he had come up with his own carriage at the post-
office in the village, whither he had walked over for exercise
and the evening papers. Sylvie had Aggie Townsend with
her, and she put her head out at the window on one side just
as her father passed on the other, and directed Michael, with
a very elegant nonchalance, * to set this little girl down ' as
aforesaid. Mr. Argenter had been half amused and half
angry. The anger passed off, but he had kept up the joke.

* Oh, do let that old story alone,' exclaimed Mrs. Argenter.
' Sylvie will soon outgrow all that. If you want to make her
a real lady, there is nothing hke letting her get thoroughly
used to having things.'

* I don't intend her to get used to having a pony-chaise,'
Mr. Argenter said very quietly and shortly. * If she wants
to "show a kindness," and take " other" girls to ride, there's
the slide-top buggy and old Scrub. She may have that as
often as she pleases.'

And Mrs. Argenter knew that this ended— or had better
end — the conversation.

For that time. Sylvie Argenter did get used to having a
pony-chaise, after all Her mother waited six months, until
the pleasant sunmier w^eather, when her friends began to
come out from the city to spend days with her, or to take
early teas, and Michael had to be sent continually to meet
and leave them at the trains. Then she began again, and
asked for a pony-chaise for herself. To ' save the cost of it
in Michael's time, and the wear and tear of the heavy car-
riages. Those little sunset drives would be such a pleasure
to her, just when Michael had to be milking and putting up
for the night.' Mr. Argenter had forgotten all about the
other talk, Sylvie's name now being not once mentioned;
and the end of it was that a pretty little low phaeton was
added to the Argenter equipages, and that Sylvie's mother
was always lending it to her.

SPILLED OUT 5

So Sylvie was driving about in it this afternoon. She had
been over to West Dorbury to see the Highfords, and was
coming round by Ingraham*s Comer, to stop there and buy
one of his fresh big loaves of real brown bread for her father's
tea. It was a little unspoken, politic understanding between
Sylvie and her mother, that some small, acceptable errand
like this was to be accomplished whenever the former had
the basket-phaeton of an afternoon. By quiet, unspoken
demonstration, Mr. Argenter was made to feel in his own
little comforts what a handy thing it was to have a daughter
flitting about so easily with a pony-carriage.

But there was something else to be accomplished this time
that Sylvie had not thought of, and that when it happened,
she felt with some dismay might not be quite offset and com-
pensated for by the Ingraham brown bread.

Rod Sherrett was out too, from Roxeter, Young- America-
fying with his tandem, trying, to-day, one of his father's
horses with his own Red Squirrel, to make out the team ; for
which, if he should come to any grief, Rodgers, the coach-
man, would have to bear responsibility for being persuaded
to let Duke out in such manner.

Just as Sylvie Argenter drew up her pony at the baker's
door. Rod Sherrett came spinning round the corner in grand
style. But Duke was not used to tandem harness, and Red
Squirrel, put ahead, took flying side-leaps now and then on
his own account; and Duke, between his comrade's esca-
pades and his driver's checks and admonitions, was to that
degree perplexed in his mind and excited off his well-bred
balance, that he was by this time becoming scarcely more
reliable in the shafts. Rod found he had his hands full.
He found this out, however, only just in time to realise it, as
they were suddenly relieved and emptied of their charge ;
for, before his call and the touch of his long whip could bring
back Red Squirrel into line at this turn, he had sprung so far
to the left as to bring Duke and the 'trap' down upon the
little phaeton. There was a lock and a crash ; a wheel was
off the phaeton, the tandem was overturned, Sylvie Argenter,
in the act of alighting, was thrown forward over the threshold
of the open shop-door, Rod Sherrett was lying in the road, a
man had seized the pony, and Duke and Red Squirrel were

6 THE OTHER GIRLS

shattering away through the scared Comer Village, with the
wreck at their heels.

Sylvie*s arm was bruised, and her dress torn ; that was
all. She felt a little jarred and dizzy at first, when Mr.
Ingraham lifted her up, and Rodney Sherrett, picking him-
self out of the dust with a shake and a stamp, found his
own bones unbroken, and hurried over to ask anxiously —
for he was a kind-hearted fellow — ^how much harm he had
done, and to express his vehement regret at the * horrid
spilL'

Rod Sherrett and Sylvie Argenter had danced together at
the Roxeter assemblies, and the little Dorbury * Germans ; '
they had boated, and picknicked, and skated in company, but
to be tumbled together into a baker's shop, torn and fright-
ened, and dusty,^-each feeling, also, in a great scrape, — this
was an odd and startling partnership. Sylvie was pale; Rod
was sorry ; both were very much demolished as to dress :
Sylvie's hat had got a queer crush, and a tip that was never
intended over her eyes ; Rodney's was lying in the street,
and his hair was rumpled and curiously powdered. When
they had stood and looked at each other an instant after
the first inquiry and reply, they both laughed. Then
Rodney shrugged his shoulders, and walked* over and picked
up his hat.

* It might have been worse,' he said, coming back, as Mr.
Ingraham and the man who had held Sylvie's pony took the
latter out of the shafts and led him to a post to fasten him,
and then proceeded together, as well as they could, to lift the
disabled phaeton and roll it over to the blacksmith's shop to
be set right.

* You 11 be all straight directly,' he said, ' and I'm only
thankful you're not much hurt. But I am in a mess.
Whew ! What the old gentleman will say if the Duke
don't come out of it comfortable, is something I'd rather
not look ahead to. I must go on and see. I'll be back again,
and if there's anything — anything more^ he added with
a droll twinkle, *that I can do for you, I shall be happy,
and will try to do it a little better.'

The feminine Ingrahams were all around Sylvie by this
time : Mrs. Ingraham, and Ray, and Dot. They bemoaned

UPSTAIRS 7

and exclaimed, and were 'thankful she'd come off a^ she
had ; ' and ' she'd better step right in and come upstairs.'
The village boys were crowding round, — ^all those who had
not been in time to nm after the ' smash,' — and Sylvie gladly
withdrew to the offered shelter. Rod Sherrett gave his hair
a toss or two with his hands, struck the dust off his wide-
awake, put it on, and walked off down the hill, through the
staring and admiring crowd.

CHAPTER II.

UP-STAIRS

The two Ingraham girls had been sitting in their own room
over the shop when the accidentoccurred, and it was there they
now took Sylvie Argenter, to have her dress tacked together
again, and to wash her face and hands and settle her hair
and hat. Mrs. Ingraham came bustling after with ' amicky '
for the bruised arm. They were all very delighted and
important, having the great Mr. Argenter's daughter quite to
themselves in the intimacy of ' up-stairs,' to wait upon and
take care of. Mrs. Ingraham fussed and *my-deared' a
good deal ; her daughters took it with more outward calm-
ness. Although baker's daughters, they belonged to the
present youthful generation, bom to best education at the
public schools, sewing-machines, and universal double-
skirted full-fashions ; and had read novels of society out of
the Roxeter town library.

There was a good deal of time after the bathing and mending
and re-arranging were all done. The axle of the phaeton had
been split, and must be temporarily patched up and banded.
There was nothing for Sylvie to do but to sit quietly there in
the old-fashioned, dimity-covered easy-chair which they gave
her by the front window, and wait Meanwhile, she
observed and wondered much.

She had never got out of the Argenter and Highford
atmosphere before. She didn't know — as we don't about the
moon — whether there might be atmosphere for the lesser and

8 THE OTHER GIRLS

subsidiary world. But here she found herself in the bed-
room of two girls who lived over a bake-shop, and, really, it
seemed they actually //^V/Jive, much after the fashion of
other people. There were towels on the stand, a worked
pincushion on the toilet, white shades and red tassels to the
windows, this comfortable easy-chair beside one, and a low
splint rocker in the other, — with queer, antique-looking, soft
footstools of dark cloth, tamboured in bright colours, before
each ; white quilted covers on table and bureau, and
positively, a striped, knitted foot-spread in scarlet and white
yarn, folded across the lower end of the bed.

She had never thought of there being anything at
Ingraham's Corner but a shop in a dusty street, with, she
supposed, — only she never really supposed about it, — some
sort of places behind and above it, ander the same roof, for
the people to get away into when they weren't selling bread,
to cook, and eat, and sleep, she had never exactly imagined
how, but of course not as they did in real houses that were
not shops. And when Mrs. Ingraham, who had bustled off
down- stairs, came shuffling up again as well as she could with
both hands full and her petticoats in the way, and appeared
bearing a cup of hot tea and a plate of spiced gingerbread, —
the latter not out of the shop, but home-made, and out of her
own best parlour cupboard, — she perceived, almost with
bewilderment, that cup and plate were of spotless china, and
the spoon was of real, worn, bright silver. She might abso-
lutely put these things to her own lips without distaste or
harm.

*It11 do you good after your start,' said kindly Mrs.
Ingraham.

The difference came in with the phraseology. A silver
spoon is a silver spoon, but speech cannot be rubbed up
for occasion. Sylvie thought she must mean before her
start, about which she was growing anxious.

* Oh, I'm sorry you should have taken so much trouble,'
she exclaimed. * I wonder if the phaeton will be ready
soon ? '

* Mr. Ingraham he's got back,' replied the lady. * He says
Rylocks '11 be through with it in about half an hour. Don't
you be a mite concerned. Jest set here and drink your tea.

UPSTAIRS 9

and rest. Dot, I guess you'd as good 's come down-stairs.
I shall be wantin' you with them fly nets. Your father's
fetched home the frames.'

Ray Ingraham sat in the side window, and crocheted
thread edging, — of which she had already yards rolled up
and pinned together in a white ball upon her lap, — while
Sylvie sipped her tea.

The side window looked out into a shady little garden-
spct, in the front comer of which grew a grand old elm,
which reached around with beneficent, beautiful branches,
and screened also a part of the street aspect. Seen from
within, and from under these great, green, swaying limbs,
— the same here in the village as out in free field or forest, —
the street itself seemed less dusty, less common, less im-
possible to pause upon for anything but to buy bread, or
mend a wheel, or get a horse shod.

' How different it is, in behind ! ' said Sylvie, speaking
out involuntarily.

Ray shot a quick look at her from her bright dark eyes,

' I suppose it is, — almost everywheres,' she answered.
* I've got turned round so, sometimes, with people and
places, until they never seemed the same again.'

If Ray had not said * everywheres,' Sylvie would not
have been reminded ; but that word sent her, in recoUection,
out to the house-front and the shop-sign again. Ray knew
better ; she was a good scholar, but she heard her mother
and others like her talk vernacular every day. It was a
wonder she shaded off from it as delicately as she did.

Ray Ingraham, or Rachel,— for that was her name, and
her sister's was Dorothy, though these had been shortened
into two as charming, pet little appellatives as could have
been devised by the most elegant intention, — was a pretty
girl, with her long-lashed, quick-glancing dark eyes, her
hair, that crimped naturally and fell off in a deep, soft
shadow from her temples, her little mouth, neatly dimpled
in, and the gipsy glow of her clear, bright skin. Dot was
different : she was dark too, not so dark ; her eyes were full,
brilliant gray, with thick short lashes ; she was round and
comfortable : nose, cheeks, chin, neck, waist, hands ; her
mouth was large, with white teeth that showed easily and

10 THE OTHER GIRLS

broadly, instead of, like Ray's, with just a quiver and a
glimmer. She was like her mother. She looked the smart,
buxom, common-sense village girl to perfection. Ray had
the hint of something higher and more delicate about her,
though she had the trigness, and readiness, and every-day-
ness too.

Sylvie sat silent after this, and looked at her, wondering,
more than she had wondered about the furniture. Thinking,
■* how many girls there were in the world I All sorts — every-
where ! What did they all do, and find to care for ? '
These were not the * other ' girls of whom her mother had
blandly said that she could show kindnesses by taking them
to drive. Those were such as Aggie To^vnsend, the navy
captain's widow's daughter, — nice, but poor ; girls whom
everybody noticed, of course, but who hadn't it in their
power to notice anybody. That made such a difference !
These were otherer yet ! And for all that they were girls, —
girls ! Ever so much of young life, and glow, and com-
panionship, ever so much of dream, and hope, and possible
story, is in just that little plural of five letters. A company
of girls ! Heaven only knows what there is not repre-
sented, and suggested, and foreshadowed there !

Sylvie Argenter, with all her nonsense, had a way of
putting herself, imaginatively, into other people's places.
She used to tell her mother, when she was a little child and
said her hymns, — which Mrs. Argenter, not having any very
fresh, instant spiritual life, I am afraid, out of which to feed her
child, chose for her in dim remembrance of what had been
thought good for herself when she was little, — that she
^didn't know exactly as she did^ "thank the goodness and the
grace that on her birth had smiled.'" She 'should like pretty
well to have been a little — Lapland girl with a sledge ; or —
a Chinese ; or — a kitchen girl ; a little while, I mean ! '

She had a way of intimacy with the servants which Mrs.
Argenter found it hard to check. She liked to get into Jane's
room when she was * doing herself up ' of an afternoon, and
look over her cheap little treasures in her band-box and
•chest-drawer. She made especial love to a camelian heart,
and a twisted gold ring with two clasped hands on it.

* I think it's real nice to have only two or three things, and

UPSTAIRS 1 1

to ''clean yourself up," and to have a "Sunday out ! "' she
said.

Mrs. Argenter was anxiously alarmed at the child's low
tastes. Yet these were very practicably compatible with the
alternations of importance in being driven about in her father's
"barouche, taking Aggie Townsend up on the road, and ' set-
ting her down at the small gray house.'

Sylvie thought, this afternoon, looking at Ray Ingraham,
in her striped lilac and white calico, with its plaited waist and
cross-banded, machine-stitched double skirt, sitting by her
shady window, beyond which, behind the garden angle, rose
up the red brick wall of the bakehouse, whence came a warm,
sweet smell of many new-drawn loaves, — looking around
within, at the snug tidiness of the simple room, and even out
at the street close by, with its stir and curious interest, yet
seen from just as real a shelter as she had in her own cham-
ber at home, — that it might really be nice to be a baker's
daughter and live in the village, — ' when it wasn't your own
fault, and you couldn't help it'

Ray nodded to some one out o£her window.

Sylvie saw a bright colour come up in her cheeks, and
a sparkle into her eyes as she did so, while a little smile, that
she seemed to think was all to herself, crept about her mouth
and lingered at the dimpled comers. There was an expres-
sion as if she hid herself quite away in some consciousness of
her own, from any recollection of the strange girl sitting by.

The strangegirl glanced from A^r window, and saw a young
carpenter with his box of tools go past under the elm, with some
sort of light subsiding also in like manner from his face. He
was in his shirt sleeves, — but the sleeves were white, — and
his straw hat was pushed back from his forehead, about which
brown curls lay damp with heat. Sylvie did not believe he
had even touched his hat, when he had looked up through the
friendly elm boughs and bowed to the village girl in her
shady comer. His hands were full, of course. Such people's
hands were almost always full. That was the reason they did not
leam such things. But how cute it had been of Ray Ingraham
not to sit in the front window ! He was certain to come by,
too, she supposed. To be sure ; that was the street Ray

12 THE OTHER GIRLS

Ingraham would not have cared to live up a long avenue, to
wait for people to come on purpose, in carriages.

She got as far as this in her thinkings, at the same mo-
ment that she came to the bottom of her cup of tea. And
then she caught a glimpse of Rylocks, rolling the phaeton
across from the smithy.

* What a funny time I have had ! And how kind you
have all been ! ' she said, getting up. ' I am ever so much
obliged, Miss Ingraham. I wonder ' — and then, suddenly,
she thought it might not be quite civil to wonder.

Ray Ingraham laughed.

* So do I ! ' she said quickly, with a bright look. She
knew well enough what Sylvie stopped at.

Each of these two girls wondered if there would ever be
any more 'getting in behind' for them, as regarded each
other, in their two different lives.

As Sylvie Argenter came out at the shop-door, Rodney
Sherrett appeared at the same point, safely mounted on the
runaway Duke. The team had been stopped below at the
river; he had found a stable and a saddle, had left Red
Squirrel and the broken vehicle to be sent for, and was
going home, much relieved, and assured by being able to
present himself upon his father's favourite roadster, whole in
bones and with ungrazed skin.

The street boys stood round again, as he dismounted to
make fresh certainty of Sylvie's welfare, handed her into
her phaeton, and then, springing to the saddle, rode away
beside her, down the East Dorbury road.

Mrs. Argenter was sitting with her worsted work in the
high, many-columned terrace piazza which gave grandeur to
the great show-house that Mr. Argenter had built some five
years since, when Sylvie, with Rod Sherrett beside her,
came driving up the long avenue, or, as Mrs. Argenter
liked to call it, out of the English novels, the approach.
She laid back her canvas and wools into the graceful
Fayal basket-stand, and came down the first flight of stone
steps to meet them.

* How late you are, Sylvie ! I had begun to be quite
worried,' she said, when Sylvie dropped the reins around
the dasher and stood up in the low carriage, nodding at

TIVO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN 13

her mother. She felt quite brave and confident about the
accident, now that Rodney Sherrett had come all the way
with her to the very door, to account for it and to help her
out with the story.

Rodney lifted his hat to the lady.

* WeVe had a great spiU, Mrs. Argenter. All my fault,
and Red Squirrel's. Miss Argenter has brought home more
than I have from the miUe, I started with a tandem, and
here I am with only Gray Duke and a borrowed saddle. It
was out at Ingraham's Corner, — a quick turn, you know, —
and Miss Argenter had just stopped when Squirrel sprang
round upon her. My trap is pretty much into kindlings,
but there are no bones broken. You must let me send
round Rodgers, on his way to town to-morrow, to take the
phaeton to the builder's. It wants a new axle. I'm awful
sorry ; but after all ' — with a bright smile, — * I can't think
it altogether an ill wind, — for me, at any rate. I couldn't
help enjoying the ride home.'

' I don't believe you could help enjoying the whole of it,
except the very minute of the tip-out itself, before you knew,'
said Sylvie, laughing.

* Well, it was a lark ; but the worst is coming. I've got to
go home all alone. I wish you'd come and tell the tale for
mey Miss Sylvie. I shouldn't be half so afraid ! '

CHAPTER III.

TWO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN

The seven o'clock morning train was starting from Dorbury
Upper Village.

Early business men, mechanics, clerks, shop-girls, sewing-
girls, office-boys, — these made up the list of passengers.
Except, perhaps, some travellers now and then, bound for
a first express from Boston, or an excursion party to take a
harbour steamer for a day's trip to Nantasket or Nahant.

Did you ever contrast one of these trains — ^when perhaps
you were such traveller or excursionist — with the after.

14 THE OTHER- GIRLS

leisurely, comfortable one at ten or eleven ; when gentlemen
who only need to be in the city through banking hours, and
ladies bent on calls or elegant shopping, come chatting and
rustling to their seats, and hold a little drawing-room ex-
change in the twenty-five minutes' trip ?

If you have, — and if you have a little sympathetic imagi-
nation that fills out hints, — you have had a glimpse of some
of these * other girls ' and the thing that daily living is to
them, with which my story means to concern itself.

Have you noticed the hats, with the rose or the feather
behind or at top, scrupulously according to the same dictate
of style that rules alike for seven and ten o'clock, but which
has often to be worn through wet and dry, till thfe rose has
been washed by too many a shower, and the feather blown by
too many a dusty wind, to stand for anything but a sign
that she knows what should be where, if she only had it to
put there ? Have you seen the cheap alpacas, in two shades,
sure to fade in different ways and out of kindred with each
other, painfully looped in creasing folds, very much sat
upon, but which would not by any means resign themselves
to simple smooth straightness, while silks were hitched and
crisp Hernanis puffed.

Yet the alpacas, and all their innumerable cousinhood,
havfe also their first mornings of fresh gloss, when the
newness of the counter is still upon them ; there is a youth
for all things ; a first time, a charm that seems as if it might
last, though we know it neither will nor was meant to ; if it
would, or were, the counters might be taken down. And
people who wear gowns that are creased and faded, have
each, one at a time, their days of glory, when they begin
again. The farther apart they come, perhaps the more of the
spring-time there is in them.

Marion Kent bloomed out this clear, sweet, clean summer
morning in a span new tea-coloured zephyrine polonaise
with three little frills edged with tiny brown braid, which set
it off trimly with the due contrasting depth of colour, and cost
nearly nothing, except the stitches and the kerosene she
burned late in the hot July nights in her only time for
finishing it. She had covered her little old curled leaf of a
hat with a tea-coloured corner that had been left, and

TIVO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN 15

puffed it up high and light to the point of the new style, with
brown veil tissue that also floated off in an abundant cloudy
grace behind; and she had such an air of breezy and
ecstatic elegance as she came beaming and hastening into
the early car, that nobody really looked down to see that the
underskirt was the identical black brilliantine that had done
service all the spring in the dismal mornings of waterproofs
and india-rubbers and general damp woollen smells and blue
nips and shivers.

Marion Kent always made you think of things that never
at all belonged to her. She gave you an impression of some-
thing that she seemed to stand for, which she could not
wholly be. Her zephyrine, with its silky shine, hinted at
the real lustres of far more costly fabrics ; her hat, perked up
with puffs of grenadine (how all these things do rhyme and
repeat their little Frenchy tags of endings !), put you in mind
of lace and feathers, and a general float and flutter of gay
miUinery ; her step and expression, as she came airily into
this second-rate old car, put on for the 'journeymen ' train,
brought up a notion, almost, of some ball-room advent,
flushed and conscious and glad with the turning of all
admiring eyes upon it ; her face, even, without being ab-
solutely beautiful, sparkled out at you a certain will and
force and intent of beauty that shot an idea or suggestion of
brilliant prettiness instantly through your unresisting
imagination, compelling you to fill out whatever was want-
ing; and what more, can you explain, do feature and
bearing that come nearest to perfect fulfilment effect ?

The middle-aged cabinet-maker looked over his news-
paper at her as she came in ; he had little daughters of his
own growing up to girlhood, and there might have been
some thought in his head not purely admiring ; but still he
looked up. The knot of office-boys, crowding and sky-
larking across a couple of seats, stopped their shuffle and
noise for a second, and one said, * My 1 ain't she stunning ? '
A young fellow, rather spruce in his own way also, with
precise necktie, deep paper cuffs and dollar store studs and
initial sleeve-buttons, touched his hat with an air of taking
credit to himself, as she glanced at him ; and another, in
a sober old gray suit, with only a black ribbon knotted

l6 THE OTHER GIRLS

under his linen collar^ turned slightly the other way as she
approached, and^ with something like a frown between his
brows, looked out of the window at a wood-pile.

Marion's cheeks were a tint brighter, and her white teeth
seemed to flash out a yet more determined smile, as, passing
him by, she seated herself with friendly bustle among some
girls a little behind him.

* In again, Marion?' said one. * I thought you'd left'

* Only in for a transient,' said Marion, with a certain clear
tone that reminded one of the stage-trainer's direction to
* speak to the galleries.' * Nellie Burton is sick, and Lufton
sent for me. I'll do for a month or so, and like it pretty well ;
then I shall have a tiff, I suppose, and fling it up again ; I
■can't stand being ordered round longer than that'

* Or longer than the new lasts,' said the other slyly, touch-
ing the drapery sleeve of the zephyrine. * It /j awful pretty,
Marry!'

* Yes, and while the new lasts Lufton '11 be awful polite,'
returned Marion. ' He likes to see his girls look stylish, I
can tell you. When things begin to shab out, then the
snubbing begins. And how they're going to help shabbing
out, I should like to know, dragging round amongst the
goods, and polishing against the counters ; and who's going
to afford ready-made, or pay for sewing, out of six dollars a
week; and cars and dinners, let alone regular board, that
some of 'em have to take off? Why there isn't enough left
for shoes ! No wonder Lufton's always changihg. Well —
there's one good of it! You can always get a temporary
there. Save up a month, and then put into port and refit.
That's the way I do.'

' But what does it come to, after all's said and done ? and
what if you hadn't the port ?' asked Hannah Upshaw, the
girl with the shawl on, who never wore suits.

Marion Kent shrugged her shoulders.

* I don't know, yet I take things as they come to me. I
don't pretend to calculate for anybody else. I know one
thing, though — there is other things to be done, — and it isn't
sewing-machines either, if you can once get started. And
when I can see my way clear, I mean to start. See if I
don't ! '

TIVO TRIPS IN- THE TRAIN 17

The train stopped at the Pomantic station. The young
man in the gray clothes rose up, took something from under
the car-seat and went out. What he had with him was a
carpenter's box. It was the same youth who had greeted
Ray Ingraham from beneath the ehn branches. As the train
^ot slowly under way again, Marion looked straight out at
her window into Frank Sunderline's face, and bowed, — ^very
modestly and sweetly bowed. He was waiting for that instant
oh the platform, until the track should be clear and he could
cross.

What he caught in Marion's look, as she turned it full
wpon him, nobody could see ; but there was a quieter earnest
in it, certainly, when she turned back ; and the young man
had responded to her salutation with a relaxing glance of
friendly pleasantness that seemed more native to his face
than the frown of a few minutes before.

Marion Kent had several selves ; several relations, at any
rate, into which she could put herself with others. I think
she showed young Sunderline, for that instant, out of gentler,
questioning, almost beseeching eyes, a something she could
not show to the whole car-full with whom at the moment of
her entrance she had been in rapport, through frills and puffs
and flutters, into which she had allowed her consciousness to
pass. Behind the little window he could only see a face ; a
face quieted down from its gay flippancy ; a face that showed
itself purposely and simply to him ; eyes that said, ' What
was that you thought of me just now ? Don^t think it ! '

They were old neighbours and child-friends. They had
grown up together ; had they been growing away from each
other in some things since they had been older ? Often it
appeared so; but it was Marion chiefly who seemed to
change ; then, all at once, in some unspoken and intangible
way, for a moment like this, she seemed to come suddenly
back again, or he seemed to catch a glimpse of that in her,
hidden, not altered, which might come back one of these
days. Was it a glimpse, perhaps, like the sight the Lord
has of each one of us, always ?

Meanwhile, what of Ray Ingraham ?

Ray Ingraham was sweet, and proper, and still ; just what
Frank Sunderline thought was prettiest and nicest for a

//^

1 8 THE OTHER GIRLS

woman to be. He was always reminded by her ways of
what it would be so pretty and nice for Marion Kent to be.
But Marion would sparkle ; and it is so hard to be still and
sparkle too. He liked the brightness and the airiness ; a
little of it, near to ; he did not like a whole car-full, or
room-full, or street full, — ^he did not like to see a woman
sparkle all round.

Mr. Ingraham had come into Dorbury Upper Village
some half-dozen years since ; had leased the bakery, house,
and shop ; and two years afterward, Rachel had come home
to stay. She had been left in Boston with her grandmother
when the family had moved out of the city, that she might
keep on a while with the school that she was used to and
stood so well in ; with her Chapel classes, also, where she
heard literature and history lectiu-es, each once a week. Ray
could not bear to leave them, nor to give up her Sunday
lessons in the dear old Mission Rooms. Dot was three
years younger ; she could begin again anywhere, and their
mother could not spare both. Besides, ' what Ray got she
could always be giving to Dot afterwards.' That is not so
easy, and by no means always follows. Dot turned out the
mother's girl, — the gii-1 of the village, as was said ; practical,
comfortable, pleasant, capable, sensible. Ray was some-
thing of all these, with a touch of more ; alive in a higher
nature, awakened to receive through upper channels, sensitive
to some things that neither pleased nor troubled Mrs.
Ingraham and Dot.

It took a gbod while to come to know a girl like Ray
Ingraham ; most of her young acquaintance felt the step up
that they must take to stand fairly beside her, or come
intimately near. Frank Sunderline felt it too, in certain
ways, and did not suppose that she could see in him more
than he saw in himself : a plain fellow, good at his trade, or
going to be ; bright enough to know brightness in other
people when he came across it, and with enough of what,
independent of circumstances, goes to the essential making
of a gentleman, to perceive and be attracted by the delicate
gentleness that makes a lady.

That was just what Ray Ingraham did see ; only he hardly
set it down in his self-estimate at its full value.

TPVO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN 19

Do you perceive, story-reader, story-raveller, that Frank
Sunderline was not quite in love with either of these girls?
Do you see that it is not a matter of course that he should be ?

I can tell you, you girls who make a romance out of the
first word, and who can tell from the first chapter how it
will all end, that you will make great mistakes if you go to
interpreting life so, — ^your own, or anybody's else.

I can tell you that men— those who are good for very
much — come often more slowly to their life-conclusions than
you think ; that vfoxmxi-nature is a good deal to a man, and
is meant to be, in gradual bearing and influence, in the
shaping of his perception, the working of comparison, the
coming to an understanding of his own want, and the form-
ing of his ideal, — yes, even in the mere general pleasantness
and gentle use of intercourse, — before the individual woman
reveals herself, slowly or suddenly, as the one only central
need, and motive, and reward, and satisfying, that the world
holds and has kept for him. For him to gain or to lose :
either way, to have mightily to do with that soul-forging
and shaping that the Lord, in His handling of every man,
is about.

That night they all came out together in the last train.
Ray Ingraham had gone in after dinner to make some pur-
chases for her mother, and had been to see some Chapel
fiiends. Marion, as she came in through the gate at the
station, saw her far before, walking up the long platform to
the cars. She watched her enter the second in the line, and
hastened on, making up her mind instantly, like a field
general, to her own best manoeuvre. It was not exactly
what every girl would have done ; and therein showed her
generalship. She would get into the same carriage, and take
a seat with her. She knew very well that Frank Sunderline
would jump on at Pomantic, his day's work just done. If he
came and spoke to Ray, he should speak also to her. She
did not risk trying which he would come and speak to. It
should be, that joining them, and finding it pleasant, he
should not quite know which, after all, had most made it so*
Different as they were, she and Ray Ingraham toned and
flavoured each other, and Marion knew it. They were like
rose-colour and gray ; or like spice and salt — you did not

c 2

22 THE OTHER GIRLS

of a table as well as the other ; but you will leam not to take
mahogany when the pine will serve the purpose. You will
keep it for what the pine wouldn't be fit for ; which wouldn't
come to pass if the pine weren't cheapest. Women wouldn't
get those places to tend counters and keep books, if the world
hadn't found out that it was poor economy, as a general rule,
to take men for it.'

* But what do you say about mental power ? About pay
for teaching, for instance ?' asked Ray.

*Why, you're coming round to my side!' exclaimed
Marion. ' I should really like to know where you are ? '

* I am wherever I can get nearest to the truth of things/
said Ray, smiling.

* That,' said Sunderline, ' is one of the specialties that is
getting righted. Women are being paid more, in proportion,
for intellectual service, and the nearer you come to the pure
mental power, the nearer you come to equality in recom-
pense. A woman who writes a clever book, or paints a good
picture, or sculptures a good statue, can get as much for her
work as a man. But where time is paid for, — ^where it is per-
sonal service, — the old principle at the root of things comes
in. Men open up the wildernesses, men sail the seas, work
the mines, forge the iron, build the cities, defend the nations
while they grow, do the physical work of the world, make
way for all the finishings of education and opportunity that
come afterward, and that put women where they are to-day.
And men must be counted for such things. It is man's work
that has made these women's platforms. They have the
capital of strength, and capital draws interest. The right of
the strongest isn't necessarily the oppression of the strongest.
That's the way I look at it. And I think that what women
lose in claim they gain in privilege.'

* Only when women come to knock about the world without
any claims, they don't seem to get much privilege,' said
Marion.

* I don't know. It seems rude to say so, perhaps, but they
find a world ready made to knock round in^ don't they ? And
it is because there's so much done that they couldn't have
done themselves, that they find the chances waiting for them
that they do. And the chances are multiplying with civilisation,

TIVO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN 23

-all the time. You see the question really goes back to first
conditions^ and lies upon the fact that first conditions may
■come back any day,— ndo come back, here and there, con-
tinually. Put man and woman together on the primitive
earth, and it is the man that has got to subdue it ; the woman
is what Scripture calls her, — the helpmeet And my notion
is that if everything was right, a woman never should have to
" knock round alone." It isn't the real orde» of Providence. .
I think Providence has been very much interfered with.*

*■ There are widows,' said Rachel, gently.

*Yes; and the "fatherless and the widows" are every-
body's charge to care for. I said — if things were right. I
wish the energy was spent in bringing round the right that is
used up in fitting tlungs to the wrong.'

* They say there are too many women in the world altoge-
ther I ' said Marion, squarely.

* I guess not — ^for all the little children,' said Frank Sun-
•derline : and his tone sounded suddenly sweet and tender.

He was helping them out of the car, now, at the village
station, and they went up the long steps to the street All
three walked on without more remark, for a little way. Then
Marion broke out in her odd fashion, —

* Ray Ingraham ! you've got home and everything sure and
comfortable. Just tell me what you'd do, if you were a
widow and fatherless or anything, and nobody took you in
chaise.'

' The thing I knew best, I suppose,' said Rachel, quietly.
* I think very likely I could be — a baker. But I am certain
of this much,' she added, lightly, * I never would 'make a
brick loaf; that always seemed to me a man's perversion of
the idea of bread.'

A-small boy was coming down the street toward them, as
she spoke, from the bake-shop door ; a brick loaf sticking
out at the two ends of an insufficient wrap of yellow brown
paper under his arm.

As Ray glanced on beyond him, she caught sight of that
which put the brick loaf, and their talk, instantly out of her
mind. The doctor's chaise, — the horse fastened by the well-
known strap and weight, — was standing before the house.
She quickened her steps, without speaking.

24 THE OTHER GIRLS

* I say/ called out the urchin at the same moment, looking^
up at her as he passed by, with a queer expression of mixed
curiosity and knowing eagerness, — 'Yer know yer father's
sick ? Fit — or sunthin' !*

But Ray made no sign — to anybody. She had already
hurried in toward the side door, through the yard, imder
the ehn.

A neighbourly-looking woman — ^such a woman as always
* steps in' on an emergency — met her at the entrance. ' He's
dreadful sick, I'm afraid, dear,' she said, reaching out and
putting her hand on Ray's shoulder. * The doctor's up-stairs ;
ben there an hour. And I believe my soul every identical
child in the village 's ben sent in for a brick loaf.'

Marion and Sunderline kept on down the Underbill road.
The conversation was broken off. It was a startling occur-
rence that had interrupted it ; but it does not need startling
occurrences to turn aside the chance of talk just when one
would have said something that one was most anxious to say.
A very little straw will do it. It is like a game at croquet
The ball you want to hit lies close ; but it is not quite your
turn ; a play intervenes ; and before you can be allowed your
strike the whole attitude and aspect are changed. Nothing
lies where it did a minute before. You yourself are driven
off, and forced into different combinations.

Marion wanted to try Sunderline with certain new notions
— certain half-purposes of her own, in the latter part of this
walk they would have together. Everything had led nicely
up to it ; when here, just at the moment o( her opportunity,
it became impossible to go on from where they were. An
event had thrust itself in. It was not seemly to disregard it
They could not help thinking of the Ingrahams. And yet,
* if it would have done,' Marion Kent could have put off her
sympathies, made her own little point, and then gone back
to the sympathies again, just as really and truly, ten minutes
afterward. They would have kept. Why are things jostled
up so?

* I am sorry for Ray,' she said, presently.

Frank Sunderline, with a grave look, nodded his head
thoughtfully, twice.

*If anything happens to Mr. Ingraham, won't it be

TIVO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN 25

strange that I should have asked her what I did, just that
minute ? '

*What? O, yes!'

It had been fairly jostled out of the young man's mind.
They walked on silently again. But Marion could not give
it up.

* I don't doubt she would be a baker ; carry on the whole
concern, — if there was money. She keeps all her father's
accoimts, now.'

'Does she?'

' She wouldn't have had the chance if there had been a
boy. That's what I say isn't fair.'

* I think you are mistaken. You can't change the way of
the world. There isn't anything to hinder a woman's doing
work like that, — even going on with it, as you say, — when it
is set for her by special circumstances. It's natural, and a
duty ; and the world will treat her well, and think the more
of her. Things are so that it is getting easier every day for
it to be done. The facilities of the times can't help serving
women as much as men. But people won't generally bring
up their daughters to the work or the prospects that they do
their sons, simply because they can't depend upon them in
the same way afterwards. If a girl marries, — ^and she ought
to if she can, right,' —

* And what if she has to, if she can, wrong ? '

* Then she interferes with Providence again. She hasn't
patience. She takes what wasn't meant for her, and she
misses what was ; whether it's work, or — somebody to work
for her.'

They were coming near Mrs. Kent's little white gate.

' I've a great mind to tell you/ said Marion, *I don't have
anybody to help me judge.'

Sunderline was a little disconcerted. It is a difficult
position for a young man to find himself in: that of suddenly
elected confidant and judge concerning a young woman's
personal affairs ; unless, indeed, he be quite ready to seek
and assume the permanent privilege. It is a hazardous
appeal for a young woman to make. It may win or lose,
strengthen or disturb, much.

' Your mother '; — ^began Sunderline.

26 THE OTHER GIRLS

*0, mother doesn't see; she doesn't understand. How
can she, living as she does ? I could make her advise me
to suit myself. She never goes about. The world has run
ahead of her. She savs I must conclude as I think best'

Sunderline was silent.

* I've a chance,' said Marion, ' if I will take it. A chance
to do something that I like, something that I think I could
do. I can't stand the shops ; there's a plenty of girls that
are crazy for the places ; let them have 'em. And I can't
stay at home and iron lace curtains for other folks, or go
round to rip up and make over other folks' old dirty carpets.
I don't mean mother shall do it much longer. This is what
I can do ; I can get on to the lecture list, for reading and
reciting. The Leverings, — you remember Virginia Levering,
who gave a reading here last winter ; her father was with
her, — Hamilton Levering, the elocutionist? Well, I know
them very well ; I've got acquainted with them since ; they
say they'll help me, and put me forward. Mr. Levering will
give me lessons and get me some evenings. He thinks I
would do well. And next year they mean to go out West,
and want me to go with them. Would you ? '

Marion looked eagerly and anxiously in Sunderline's face
as she asked the question. He could not help seeing that
she cared what he might think. And on his part, he could
not help caring a good deal what she might do. He did not
like to see this girl, whom he had known and been friends
with from childhood, spoilt. There was good, honest stuff
in her, in spite of her second-rate vanities and half-bred
ambitions. If she would only grow out of these, what a
womanly woman she might be ! That fair, grand-featured
face of hers, what might it not come to hold and be beau-
tiful with, if it could once let go its little airs and conscious-
nesses that cramped it ? It had a finer look in it now than
she thought of, as she waited, with real ingenuous solicitude,
his answer.

He gave it gravely and conscientiously.

' I don't think I have any business to advise. But I don't
exactly believe in that sort of thing. It isn't a genuine trade.'

'Why not? People like it. Virginia Levering makes
fifty dollars a night, even when they ]|jiave to hire a hall.'

TIVO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN 27

'And how often do the nights come? And how long is it
likely to last?'

'Long enough to make money, I guess/ said Marion,
laughing. She was a little reassured at Sunderline's tolera-
tion of the idea, even so far as to make calm and definite
objection. 'And it's pleasant at the time. I like going
about. I like to please people. I like to be somebody. It
may be silly, but that's the truth.'

'And what would you be afterward, when you had had
your day ? For none of these days last long, especially with
women.'

' O !' exclaimed Marion, with remonstrative astonishment
' Mrs. Kemble! Charlotte Cushman !'

' It won't do to quote them, I'm afraid. I suppose you'd
hardly expect to come up into that row?' said Sunderline,
smiling.

' They began, some time,' returned Marion.

* Yes ; but for one thing, it wasn't a time when everybody
else was beginning. Shall I tell you plainly how it seems to
me?'

' I wish you would.'

They had walked slowly for the last three or four minutes,
till they had come to the beginning of the paling in which, a
little further on, was the white gate. They paused here ;
Frank Sunderline rested his box of tools on the low wall that
ran up and joined the fence, and Marion turned and stood
with her face toward him in the western light, and her little
pink-lined linen sunshade up between her and the low su^, —
between her and the roadway also, down which might come
any curious passers-by.

' It seems to me,' said Frank Sunderline, ' that women are
getting on to the platforms nowadays, not so much for any
real errand they have there, as just for the sake of saying,
I'm here ! I think it is very much the " to be seen of men"
motive, — the poorest part of women's characters, — ^that plays
itself out in this way, as it always has done in dancing and
dressing and acting, and what not. It isn't that a woman
might not be on a platform, if she were called there, as well
as anywhere else. There never was a woman came out
before the world in any grand, true way, that she wasn't all

28 THE OTHER GIRLS

the more honoured and attended to because she was a
woman. There are some things too good to be made common ;
things that ought to be saved up for a special time^ so that
they may be special. If it falls to a woman to be a Queen,
and to open and dismiss her Parliament, nobody in all the
kingdom but thinks the words come nobler and sweeter for
a woman's saying them. But that's because she is put there,
not because she climbs up some other way. If a woman
honestly has something that she must say — some great word
from the Lord, or for her country, or for suffering people, —
then let her say it ; and every real woman's husband, and
every real mother's son, will hear her with his very hearts
Or if even she has some sure wonderful gift, — if she can sing,
or read, or recite; if she can stir people up to good and
beautiful things as one in a thousand^ that's her errand ; let
her do it, and let the thousand come to hear. But she ought
to be certain sure, or else she's leaving her real errand
behind. Don't let everybody, just because the door is open,
rush in without any sort of a pass or countersign. That's
what it's coming to. A sham trade^ like hundreds of other
sham trades ; and the shammer and the shamefuUer, because
women demean themselves to it. I can't bear to see women
changing so, away from themselves. We shan't get them
back again, this generation. The homes are going. Young
men of these days have got to lose their wives — that they
ought to have — and their homes that they looked forward to,
such as their mothers made. It's hard Upon them ; it takes
away their hopes and their motives ; it's as bad for them as
for the women. It's the abomination of desolation standing
in the holy place. There's no end to the mischief; but it
works first and worst with exactly girls of your class — our
class, Marion. Girls that are all upset out of their natural
places, and not really fit for the new things they undertake
to do. As I said, — how long will it last ? How long will the
Mr. Hamilton Leverings put you forward and find chances
for you ? Just as long as you are young and pretty and new.
And then, what have you got left ? What are you going to
turn round to?'

Sunderline stopped. The colour flushed up in his face.
He had spoken faster and freer and longer than he had

TIVO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN 29

thought of; the feeling that he had in hun about thisthmg,
and the interest he had in Marion Kent, all rushed to words
together, so that he had almost forgot that Marion Kent in
bodily presence stood listening before him, he was deahng so
much now with his abstract thought of her, and his notion of
real womanhood.

But Marion Kent did stand there. She flushed up too,
when she said, ' We are going to lose our wives by it.' What
did he mean ? Would he lose anything, if she took to this
that she thought of, and went abroad into the world, and
before it ? Why didn't he say so, then 1 Why didn't he
give her the choice ?

But what difference need it make, in any such way ? Why
shouldn't a girl be doing her part beforehand, as a man does?
He was getting ahead in his trade, and saving money. By
and by, he would think he had got enough, and then he would
ask somebody to be his wife. What should the wife have been
doing in the meantime — ^before she was sure that she would
ever be a wife ? Why shouldn't she look our for herself ?

She said so.

' I don't see exactly, Mr. Sunderline.'

She called him * Mr. Sunderline,* though she remembered
very well that in the earnestness of his talk he had called her
* Marion.' They had grown to that time gf life when a young
man and a girl who have known each other always, are apt to
drop the familiar Christian name, and not take up anything
else if they can help it. The time when they carefully secure
attention before they speak, and then use nothing but pro-
nouns in addressing each other. A girl, however, says * Mr.'
a little more easily than a man says *Miss.' The girl has
always been ' Miss ' to the world in general ; the boy grows
up to his manly title, and it is not a special personal matter
to give it to him. There is something, even, in the use of it,
which delicately marks an attitude — not of distance, but of a
certain maidenly and bewitching consciousness — in a girl
friend grown into a woman, and recognizing the man.

* I don't see, exactly, Mr. Sunderline,' said Marion. ' Why
shouldn't a girl do the best she can ? Will she be any the
worse for it afterwards.'' Why should the wives be all spoilt,
any more than the husbands ? '

30 THE OTHER GIRLS

* Real work wouldn't spoil ; only the sham and the show.
Don't do it, Marion. I wouldn't want my sister to, if I had
one — there !•'

He had not meant so directly to answer her question. He
came to this end involuntarily.

Marion felt herself tingle from head to foot with the sud-
denness of the negative that she had asked for and brought
down upon herself Now, if she acted, she must act in
defiance of it. She felt angrily ashamed, too, of the position
in which his words put her ; that of a girl seeking notoriety,
for mere show's sake ; desiring to do a sham work ; to make
a pretension without a claim. How did he know what her
claim might be ? She had a mind to find out, and let him
see. Sister ! what did he say that for ? He needn't have
talked about sisters, or wives either, after that fashion.
Spoilt ! Well, what should she save herself for ? It was
pretty clear it wouldn't be much to him.

The colour died down, and she grew quiet, or thought she
did. She meant to be very quiet; very indifferent and
calm. She lifted up her eyes, and there was a sort of still
flash in them. Now that her cheek was cool, they burned,
— ^burned their own colour, blue-gray that deepened almost
into black.

* I've a good will, however,' she said slowly, ' to find out
what I can do. Perhaps neither you nor I know that, yet.
Then I can make up my mind. I rather believe in taking
what comes. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Very likely nobody will ever care particularly whether I'm
spoilt or not. And if I'm spoilt for one thing, I may be made
for another. There have got to be all sorts of people in the
world, you know.'

She was very handsome, with her white chin up, haughtily ;
her nose making its straight, high line, as she turned her
face half away ; her eyes so dark with will, and the curve of
hurt pride in her lips that yet might turn easily to a quiver.
She spoke low and smooth ; her words dropped cool and
clear, without a tone of temper in them ; if there was pas-
sionate force, it was from a fire far down. /

If she could do so upon a stage ; if she could look like that
saying other people's words — words out of a book ; if she

TIVO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN 31

could feel into the passions of a world, and interpret them ;
then, indeed ! But Marion Kent had never entered into
heights and depths of thought and of experience ; she knew
only Marion Kent's little passions as they came to her, and
spoke themselves in homely, unchoice words. Mrs. Kemble
or Charlotte Cushman might have made a study from that
face that would have served for a Queen Katharine ; but
Queen Katharine's grand utterances would never have
thrilled Marion Kent to wear the look as she wore it now,
piqued by the plain-speaking — and the not speaking— of the
young village carpenter.

' I hope you don't feel hurt with me ; I've only been honest,
and I meant to be kind,' said Frank Sunderline.

' No, indeed ; I dare say you did,' returned Marion. 'After
all, everybody has got to judge for themselves. I was silly
to think anybody could help me.'

* Perhaps you could help yourself better,' said the young
man, loth to leave her in this mood, * if you thought how
you would judge for somebody you cared for. If you own
little sister ' —

Now the quiver came. Now all the hurt, and pique, and
shame, and jealous disappointment rushed together to mingle
themselves and disguise themselves with a swell and pang
that always rose in her at the name of her little dead sister, —
dead six years ago, when she was nine and Marion twelve.

The tears sprang to the darkened eyes, and quenched down
their burning ; the colour swept into her face, like the colour
after a blow ; the lips gave way ; and with words that came
like a cry she exclaimed passionately, —

' Don't speak of little Sue ! I can't bear it ! I never
could ! I don't know what I say now. Good night, good
bye.'

And she left him there with his box upon the wall;
turned and hurried along the path, and in through the little
white gate.

32 THE OTHER GIRLS

CHAPTER IV.

NINETY-NINE FAHRENHEIT.

Rodney Sherrett got up from the breakfast table, where
he had eaten half an hour later than the rest of the family,
threw aside the newspaper that had served to accompany his
meal as it had previously done his father's, and walked out
through the conservatory upon the slope of lawn scattered
over with bright little flower-beds, among which his sister,
with a large shade hat on, and a pair of garden scissors and
a basket in her hands, was moving about, cutting carnations
and tea-roses and bouvardia and geranium leaves and bits of
vines, for her baskets and shells and vases.

* I say, Amy, why haven't you been over to the
Argenters' this long while? Why don't you get Sylvie
here ? '

* Why, I did go, Rod I Just when you asked me to. And
she has been here ; she called three' weeks ago.'

' O, poh ! After the spill ! Of course you did. Just
called ; and she called. Why need that be the end of it ?
Why don't you make much of her ? I can tell you she's a
girl you might make much of. She behaved like a lady that
day ; and a woman, — ^thaf s more. She was neither scared
nor mad ; didn't scream, nor pout ; nor even stand round to
keep up the excitement She was just cool and quiet, and
took herself off properly. I don't know another girl that
would have done so. She saved me out of the scrape as far
as she was concerned ; she might have made it ten times
the muss it was. I'd rather run down a whole flock of sheep
than graze the varnish off a woman's wheel, as a general
principle. There's real backbone to Sylvie Argenter, besides
her prettiness. My father would like her, I know. Why
don't you bring her he^re ; get intimate with her ? I can't
do it, — too fierce, you know.'

Amy Sherrett laughed.

* What a nice little cat's-paw a sister makes ! Doesn't
she, Rod?'

NINETY-NINE FAHRENHEIT 33

' I wonder if cats don't like chestnuts too^ sometimes/ said
Rod ; and then he whistled.

* What a worry you are, Rod I ' said Amy, with a little
frown that some pretty girls have a way of making ; half
real and half got up for the occasion ; a very becoming little
pucker of a frown that seems to put a lovely sort of perplexed
trouble into the beautiful eyes, only to show how much too
sweet and tender they really are ever to be permitted a
perplexity, and what a touching and appeahng thing it
would be if a trouble should get in them in any earnest,
* In term time Fm always wishing it well over, for fear of
what dreadful thing you may do next ; and when it is
vacation, it gets to be so much worse, here and there and
everywhere, that Pm longing for you to be safe back in
Cambridge.'

* Coming home Saturday nights ? Well, you do get about
the best of me so. And we fellows get just the right little
sprinkle of family influence, too. It loses its effect when
you have it all the time. That's what I tell Truesdaile,
when he goes on about home, and what a thing it is to have
a sister, — he doesn't exactly say my sister; I suppose he
believes in the tenth commandment By the way, he's
knocking round at the sea-shore somewhere using up the
time. I've half a mind to hunt him up and get him back
here for the last week or so. I think he'd Uke it.'

'Nonsense, Rod! You can't. When Aunt Euphrasia's
away.'

* She would come back, if you asked her ; wouldn't she ?
I think it would be a charity. Put it to her as an oppor-
tunity. She'd drop anything she might be about for an
opportunity. I wonder if she ever goes back upon her tracks
and finishes up ? She's something like a mowing machine :
a grand good thing, but needs a scythe to follow round and
pick out the stumps and comers.'

Amy shook her head.

* I don't believe I'll ask her. Rod. She's perfectly happy
up there in New Ipswich, painting wild flowers and pressing
ferns, and swinging these five children in her hammock, and
carrying them all to drive in her pony-waggon, and getting
up hampers of fish and baskets of fruit, and beef sirloins by

D '

34 THE OTHER GIRLS

express, and feeding them all up, and paying poor dear
cousin Nan ten dollars a- week for letting her do it I guess
it's my opportunity to get along here without her, and let her
stay.'

* Incorruptible 1 Well — ^you're a good girl. Amy. I must
come down to plain soft-sawder. Put some of those things
together prettily, as you know how, and drive over and take
them to Sylvie Argenter this afternoon, will you?'

* Fish and fruit and sirloins ! '

* Amy, you're an aggravator ! '

'No. I'm only grammatical. I'm sure those were the
antecedents.'

' If you don't, I will.'

* If you will, I will too, Rod ! Drive me over, that's a
good boy, and I'll go.'

Amy seized with delicate craft her opportunity for getting
her brother off from one of his solitary, roaming expeditions
with Red Squirrel that ended too often in not being solitary,
tut in bringing him into company with people who knew
about horses, or had them to show, and were planning for
races, and who were likely to lead Rodney, in spite of his
innate gentlemanhood, into more of mere jockeyism than
either she or her father liked.

* But the flowers, I fancy. Rod, would be coals to New-
castle. They have a greenhouse.'

* And have never had a decent man to manage it It came
to nothing this year. She told me so. You see it just is a
literal new castle. Mr. Argenter is too busy in town to look
after it; and they've been cheated and disappointed right
and left. The/re not to blame for being new,' he continued,
seeing the least possible little lt/ted\oo\i about Amy's delicate
lips and eyebrows. ' I hate that kind of shoddiness.'

* " Don't fire — I'U come down," ' said Amy, laughing. ' And
I don't think I ever gtivery far up, beyond what's safe and
reasonable for a' —

* Nice, well-bred little coon,' said Rodney, patting her on
the shoulder, in an exuberance of gracious approval and
beamingly serene content ' I'll take you in my gig with
Red Squirrel,' he added, by way of reward of merit

Now Amy in her secret heart was mortally afraid of Red

NINETY-NINE FAHRENHEIT 35

Squirrel, but she would have been upset ten times over — ^by-
Rodney — sooner than say so.

When Sylvie Argenter, that afternoon, from her window
with its cool, deep awning, saw Rodney Sherrett and his
sister coming up the drive, there flashed across her, by a
curious association, the thought of the young carpenter who
had gone up the village street and bowed to Ray Ingraham,
the baker's daughter.

After all, the gentleman's ' place,' apart and retired, and
the long ' approach,' were not so very much worse, when the
'people in the carriages,' — the right people, — really came;
and ^ on purpose' was not such a bad qualification of the
coming, either.

And when Mrs. Argenter, hearing the bell, and the move-
ment of an arrival, and not being herself summoned in con-
sequence, rang in her own room for the maid, and received
for answer to her enquiry, — * Miss Sherrett and young Mr.
Sherrett, ma'am, to see Miss Sylvie,' — she turned back to her
volume of ' London Society,' much and mixedly reconciled
in her thoughts to two things that occurred to her at once, —
one of them adding itself to the other as manifestly in the
same remarkable order of providence; 'that tip-out' from
the basket-phaeton, and the new white frill-trimmed polonaise
that Miss Sylvie would put on, so needlessly, this afternoon,
in spite of her remonstrance that the laundress had just left
without warning, and there was no knowing when they should
ever find another.

* There is certainly a fate in these matters,' she said to her-
self, complacently. * One thing always follows another.'

Mrs. Argenter was apt to make to herself a ' House that
Jack built' out of her providences. She had always a little
string of them to rehearse in every history ; from the malt
that lay in the house, and the rat that ate the malt, up to the
priest all shaven and shorn, that married the man that kissed
the maid — and so on, all the way back again. She counted
them up as they went along. * There was the overturn,' she
would say, by and by ; * and there was Rodney Sherrett's cjdi
because of that, and then his sister's because no doubt he
asked her, and then their both coming together; and there
was your pretty white polonaise, you know, the day they did

36 THE OTHER GIRLS

come; and there was' — Mrs. Argenter has not counted up to
that yet. Perhaps it may be a long while before she will so
readily count it in.

It had turned out a hot day ; one of those days in the
nineties^ when if you once hear from the thermometer, or in
any way have the fact forcibly brought home to you, you re-
linquish all idea of exertion yourself and look upon the
world outside as one great pause, out of which no movement
can possibly come, unless there first come the beneficence of
an east wind, which the dwellers on Massachusets Bay have
always for a reserve of hope. Yet it may quite well occur
to here and there an individual with a resolute purpose in
the day, to actually live through it and pursue the intended
plan, without realising the extra degrees of Fahrenheit at all,
and to learn with surprise at set of sun when the deeds are
done, of the excelsior performances of the mercury. With
what secret amazement and dismay is one's valour recog-
nised, however, when it has led one to render one's self at
four in the afternoon on such a day, near one's friend who
has been vividly conscious of the torrid atmosphere ? Did
you ever make or receive such an afternoon call ?

Mrs. Argenter, comfortable in her thin wrapper, reading
her thin romance, did not trouble herself to be astonished.
^ They were young people ; young people could do anything/
she dimly thought ; and putting the white polonaise into the
structure of the House that Jack built, she interrupted her-
self no farther than presently to ring her bell again, and
tell the maid on no account to admit anyone to see her-
self, and to be sure that there were plenty of raspberries
brought in for tea.

Meanwhile, away in the cities, the thermometer had
climbed and climbed. Pavements were blistering hot;
watering carts went lumbering round only to send up a reek
of noisome mist and to leave the streets whitening again a few
yards behind them. Blinds were closed up and down the
avenues, where people had either long left their houses vacant
or were sheltering themselves in depths of gloom in t4ie
tomb-like coolness of their double walls. Builders' trowels
and hammers had a sound that made you think of sparks
-struck out, as if the world were a great forge and all its

NINETY-NINE FAHRENHEIT 37

matter at a white heat. Down in the poor, crowded places,
where the gutters fumed with filth, and doors stood open
upon horrible passages and staircases, little children, bare-
footed, with one miserable garment on, sat on grimy stone
steps, or played wretchedly about the sidewalks, impeding
the passers of a better class who hastened with bated breath,
amidst the fever-breeding nuisances, along to railway
stations whence they would escape to country and sea-side
homes.

On the wharves was the smell of tarred seams and cord-
age, — sweltering in the sun; in the counting-rooms the
clerks could barely keep the drops of moisture from their
faces from falling down to blot their tiresome lines of figures
on the faultless pages of the ledgers ; on the Common, com-
mon men surreptitiously stretched themselves in shady
comers on the grass, regardless of the police, until they
should be found and ordered off ; little babies in second-rate
boarding-houses, where their fathers and mothers had to stay
for cheapness the summer through, wailed the helpless, piti-
ful cry of a slowly murdered infancy ; and out on the blazing
thoroughfares where business had to be busy, strong men
were dropping down, and reporters were hovering about
upon the skirts of little crowds, gathering their items ;
making their hay while this terrible sun was shining.

What did Mrs. Argenter care ?

The sun would be going down now, in a little while ; then
the cool piazzas, and the raspberries and cream, and the iced
milk — yellow Alderney milk — would be delightful. Once
or twice she diti think of 'Argie' in New York, — gone
thither on some perplexing, hurried errand, which he had
only half told her, and the half-telling of which she had only
half heard, — and remembered that the heat must be * awful '
there. But to-night he would be on board the splendid
Sound steamer, coming home ; and to-morrow, if this lasted,
she would surely speak to him about getting off for a while
to Rye, or Mount Desert.

She came by and by to the end of her volume, and found
that the serial she was following ran on into the next.

* Provoking,' she said, tossing it down to the end of the
sofa, *and neither Sylvie nor I can get into town in this

38 THE OTHER GIRLS

heat, and Argie thinks it such a bother to be asked to go to
Loring's.'

Just then Sylvie's step came lightly up the stairs. She
looked into the large cool dressing-room where her mother
lay.

* I'm only up for my '* Confession Album," ' she said. ' But
O Mater Amata! if you'd just come down and help me
through ! I know they'd stay to tea and go home in the cool,
if I only knew how to ask them ; but if I said a word I
should be sure to drive them away. You can do it ; and
they would if you came. Please do ! '

' You silly child ! Won't you ever be able to do anything
yourself? When you were a little girl, you wouldn't carry a
message, because you could get into a house, but didn't
know how to get outf And now you are grown up, you can
get people into the house to see you, but you don't know how
to ask them to stay to tea ! What shall I ever do with you ? '

' I don't know. I'm awfully afraid of — nice girls ! '

' Sylvie, I'm ashamed of you! As if you had any other
kind of acquaintance, or weren't as nice as any of them! I
wouldn't suggest it, even to myself, if I were you.'

*And I don't,' said Sylvie, boldly — 'when I'm by myself.
But there's a kind of a little misgiving somehow, when they
come, or when I go, as if — well, as if there might be some-
thing to it that I didn't know of, or behind it that I hadn't
got ; or else, that there were things that they had nothing to'
do with that I know too much of. A kind of a — Poggowan-
timoc feeling, mother! Amy Sherrett is so fearfully refined
— all the way through ! It doesn't seem as if she ever had
any conmion things to say or do. Don't you think it takes
common things to get people really near to each other ? It
doesn't seem to me I could ever be intimate — or very easy —
with Amy Sherrett.'

* You seemed to get on well enough with her brother, the
other day.'

* Boys aren't half so bad. There isn't any such waxwork
about boys. Besides,' — and Sylvie laughed a low, gay little
laugh, — ' we got spilt out together, you know.'

* Well, don't stand talking. You mustn't keep them wait-
ing. It isn't time to speak about tea, yet. Look over the

NINETY-NINE FAHRENHEIT 39

album, and get at some music. Keep them, without saying
anything about it. When people think every minute they
are just going, is just when they are having the very plea-
santest time.'

* I know it But youll come, won't you; and make it all
right ? Put on something loose and cool ; that lovely black
lace jacket with the violet lining, and your gray silk skirt. It
won't take you a minute. .Your hair's perfectly sweet now.'
And Sylvie hurried away.

Mrs. Argenter came down, twenty minutes afterwards, into
the great sunmier drawing-room, where the finest Indian
matting, and dark rich Persian rugs, and inner window blinds
folded behind lace curtains that fell like the foam of water-
falls from ceiling to floor, made a pleasantness out of the
very heat against which such furnishings might be provided.

In her silken skirt of silver gray, and the llama sack, violet
lined, to need no tight corsage beneath, her fair wrists and
arms showing white and cool in the wide drapery sleeves, she
looked a very lovely lady. Sylvie was proud of her handsome
elegant mother. She grew a great deal braver always when
Mrs. Argenter came in. She borrowed a second conscious-
ness from her in which she took courage, assured that all
was right. Chairs and rugs gave her no such confidence,
though she knew that the Sherretts themselves had no more
faultless surroundings. Anybody could have rugs and chairs.
It was the presence among them that was wanted ; and poor
Sylvie seemed to herself to melt quite away, as it were, before
such a girl as Amy Sherrett, and not to be able to be a pre-
sence at all.

It was all right now, as Sylvie had said. They could not
leave immediately upon Mrs. Argenter joining them ; and
her joining them was of itself a welcome and an invitation.
So Sylvie called upon her mother to admire the lovely basket,
wherein on damp, tender, bright green moss, clustered the
most exquisite blossoms, and the most delicate trails of stem
and leafage wandered and started up lightly, and at last fell
like a veil over rim and handle, and dropped below the edge
of the tiny round table with Siena marble top, on which
5ylvie had placed it between thp curtains of the recess that

40 THE OTHER GIRLS

led through to their conservatory, which had been ' a failure
this year.'

* I would not tell you of it, Amata. I wanted you just to
see it,' she said. And Mrs. Argenter admired and thanked,
and then lamented their own ill-success in greenhouse and
garden culture.

' I am not strong enough to look after it much myself, and
Mr. Argenter never has time/ she said ; ' and our first man
was a tipsifier, and the last Was a rogue. He sold off quan-
tities of the best young plants, we found, just before they
came to show for anything.'

' Our man has been with us for eight years ' said Rodney
Sherrett. *I dare say he could recommend some one to
you, if you liked ; and he wouldn't send anybody that wasn't
right. Shall I ask him ?

Mrs. Argenter would be delighted if he would ; and then
Mr. Sherrett must come into the conservatory, where a few
ragged palm ferns, their great leaves browning and ciiimblin^
at the edges, — some daphnes struggling into green tips,
having lost their last growth of leaf and dropped all their
flower buds, and several calmly enduring orange and lemon
trees, gave all the suggestion of foliage that the place afforded,
and served, much like the painter's inscription at the bottom
of his canvas, merely to signify by the scant glimpse through
the drawing-room draperies, — ' This is a conservatory.'

Mrs. Argenter asked Rodney something about the best
arrangement for the open beds, and wanted to know what
would be surest to do well for the rockery, and whether it
was in a good part of the house, — sufficiently shaded 1 Mean-
while, Amy and Sylvie were turning over music, and when
Ihey all gathered together again the call had extended to a
two hours' visit.

* It is really unpardonable,' Amy Sherrett was saying, and
picking up the pretty little hat which she had thrown down
upon a chair, — 'it had been so warm to wear anything a
minute that one need not.' And then Mrs. Argenter said so
easily and of course, that they ' certainly would not think of
going now, when it would soon be really pleasant for a
twilight drive ; tea would be ready early, for she and Sylvie
were alone, and all they had cared for to-day had been a

NINETY-NINE FAHRENHEIT 41

cold lunch at one. They would have it on the nortli
verandah ; ' and she touched a bell to give the order.

Perhaps Amy Sherrett would hardly have consented, but
that Rodney gave her a look, comical in its appeal, over
Sylvie's shoulder, as she stood showing him a great scarlet
Euphorbia in a portfolio of water-colours, and said with a
beseeching significance, —

' Consider Red Squirrel, Amy. He really did have a
pretty hard pull ; and what with the heat and the flies, I
dare say he would take it with more equanimity after sun-
down, — since Mrs. Argenter is so very kind.'

And so they stayed ; and Mrs. Argenter laid another littie
brick in her ' House that Jack built.*

At this same time, — how should she know it ? — something
very different was going on in one of the rooms of a great
hotel in New York. Somebody else who had meant before
now to have left for home, had been delayed till after sun-
down. Somebody else would go over the road by dark
instead of by daylight. By dark, — though there should be
broad, beating sunshine over the world again when the
journey should be made.

While Mrs. Argenter's maid was bringing out the tray with
delicate black-etched china cups, and costly fruit plates
illimiinated with colour, and dainty biscuits, and large, rare,
red berries, and cream that would hardly pour for richness in
a gleaming crystal flagon, — and ranging them all on the
rustic verandah table, — something very different, — ^very grim,
— at which the occupants of rooms near by shuddered as it
passed their open doors, — was borne down the long, wide
corridor to Number Five, in the Metropolitan ; and at the
same moment, again, a gentleman, very grave, was standing
at the counter of the Merchants' Union Telegraph Company's
Office, writing with rapid hand, a brief despatch, addressed
to *Mrs. I. M. Argenter, Dorbury, Mass.,' and signed
'Philip Burkmayer, M.D.'

Nobody knew of anyone else to send to ; at that hour,
especially, when the office in State Street would be closed.
Closed, with that name outside the door that stood for
nobody now.

42 THE OTHER GIRLS

The news must go bare and unbroken to her.

Something occurred to Doctor Burkmayer, however, as he
was just handing the slip to the attendant.

' Stop, give me that again, a minute,' he said ; and tearing
it in two, he wrote another, and then another.

* Send this on at once, and the second in an hour,' he said ;
as if they might have been prescriptions to be administered.
' They may both be delivered together, after all,' he continued
to himself, as he turned away. ' But it is all I can do.
When a weight is let drop, it has got to fall. You can't
€ase it up much with a string measured out for all the way
down!'

The young woman operator at the little telegraph station
at Dorbur}*^ Upper Village heard the call-click as she un-
locked the room and came in after her half-hour supper
time. She set the wires and responded, and laid the paper
slip under the wonderful pins.

* Tick-tick-tick ; tick -tick ; tick-tick-tick-tick,' and so on.
The girl's face looked startled, as she spelled the signs along.
She answered back when it was ended ; then wrote out the
message rapidly upon a blank, folded, directed it, and went
to the open street door.

' Sim ! Here — quick ! ' she called to a youth opposite, in
a stable-yard.

^ This has got to go down to the Argenter Place. And mind
how you give it It's bad news.'

' How can /mind?' says Sim, gruffly. 'Ispose I must
give it to who comes.'

* You might see somebody on the way, and speak a word ;
a neighbour, or the minister, or somebody. 'Tain't fit for it
to go right to her, / know. Telegraphs might as well be
something else when they can, besides lightning ! '

* Donno's I can go travellin' round after 'em, if that's what
you mean,' said Sim, putting the envelope in his rough breast
pocket, and turning off.

Sylvie was standing on the stone-steps, bidding the Sher-
retts good-by ; Amy was just seated in the gig, and Rodney
about to spring in beside her, when Sim Atwill drove up the
avenue in the rusty covered waggon that did telegraph errands.
Red Squirrel did not quite like the sudden coming face to

NINETY-NINE FAHRENHEIT 43

face, as Sim reined up in a hurry just below the door, and
Rodney had to pause and hold him in.

*A tellagrim for Mrs. Argenter/ said Sim, seizing his
■opportunity, and speaking to whom it might concern.
* Eighty cents to pay, and I 'blieve it's bad news.'

' Oh, Mr. Sherrett, stop, please ! ' cried Sylvie, turning
white in the dim light. What shall I do ? Won't you wait
a minute. Miss Sherrett, until I see ? Won't you come in
again? Mother will be frightened to death, and I'm all
alone.'

*Jump out. Amy; I'll take Squirrel round,' was Rodney's
answer. * Go right up ; I'll come.'

And as Sylvie took the thin envelope that held so much,
and the two girls silently passed up into the piazza again, he
paid Sim the eighty cents which nobody thought of at that
moment or ever again, and sent him off.

Sylvie and Amy stopped under the softly bright hall lan-
tern. Mrs. Argenter was up-stairs in her dressing-room,
quite at the end of the long upper hall, changing her lace
sack for a cashmere, before coming out into the evening air
again.

' I think I shall open it myself,' whispered Sylvie, tremu-
lously ; * it would seeni worse to mother, whatever it is,
-coming this way. She has such a horror of a telegram.'
She looked at it on both sides, drew a little shivering breath,
and paused again.

* Is it wicked, do you think, to wish it may be — only
^andma, perhaps .f* Do you suppose it cov^d. possibly hQ — ♦
lay father f* ,

And by this time there was a hysterical sound in poor little
Sylvie's voice.

* Wait a minute/ said Amy, kindly. ' Here's Rod.'

'Office of Western Union Telegraph Co.,

New York, July 2^th, 187—.
* To Mrs. I. M. Argenter, Dorbury, Mass.

*Mr. Argenter has had a sunstroke. Insensible. Very
cserious. Will telegraph again.

' Philip Burkmayer, M.D.'

Sylvie's eyes, so roundly innocent, so star-light in their

44 THE OTHER GIRLS

usual bright uplifting, were raised now with a wide terror in
them, first to Rodney, then to Amy ; and ' O — O ! ' broke in
short, subdued gasps from her lips.
Then they heard Mrs. Argenter's step up-stairs.

* What is the maiter, Sylvie ? What are you doing ? Who
is with you down there?' she said, over the baluster, from
the hall above.

'Oh, mother!' cried Sylvie, 'they aren't gone! Some-
thing has come / Go up and tell her, Amy, please ! ' And
forgetting all about Amy as ' Miss Sherrett,' and all her fear
of * nice girls,' she dropped down on the lower step of the
staircase after Amy had passed her upon her errand, put her
face between her hands and caught her breath with fright-
ened sobs.

Rodney, leaning against the newel post, looked down at
her, and said, after the manner of men, — * Don't cry. It
mayn't be very bad, after all. You'll hear again in an hour
or two. Can't I do something? I'll go to the telegraph
office. rU fetch somebody for your mother. Whom shall
I go for?'

* O, you are very kind. I don't know. Wait a minute.
They didn't say any place ! We ought to go right to New
York, and we don't know where ! O, dear ! ' She had
lifted her head a little, just to say these broken sentences,
and then it went down again.

Rodney did not answer instantly. It occurred to him all
at once what this ' not saying any place ' might mean.

Just as he began, — 'You couldn't go until to-morrow,' —
came Mrs. Argenter's sharp cry from her room above. Amy
had walked right on into the open, lighted apartment, Mrs.
Argenter following, not daring to ask what she came and
did this strange thing for, till Amy made her sit down in her
own easy chair, and taking her hands, said gently, —

' It is a telegram from New York. Mr. Argenter — is very
ill.' Then Mrs. Argenter cried out, * That's not all ! I
know how people bring news ! Tell me the whole.' And
Sylvie sprang to her feet, hearing the quick, excited words,
and leaving Rodney Sherrett standing there, rushed up into
the dressing-room.

This was the way the same sort of news came to Sylvie

SPILLED OUT AGAIN 45

Argenter as had come to the baker's daughter. Did it really
make any difference — the different surrounding of the two ?
The great house— the lights — ^the servants — the friends;
and the open bake-shop door, the village street, the blunt,
common-spoken neighbour-woman, and the boy with the
brick loaf?

These two were to be fatherless: their mothers were both
to be widows : that was all.

Did it happen strangely with the two — in this same story ?
Who know, always/ when they are in the same story ? These
things are happening every day, and one great story holds
us alL If one could see wide enough, one could tell the
whole.

These things happen: and then the question comes, — alike
in high and low places, — alike with money and without it, —
what the women and the girls are to do ?

Rodney Sherrett took his sister home : drove three miles
round and brought Mrs. Argenter's sister to her from River
Point, and then turned towards Dorbury Upper Village and
the telegraph office. But he met Sim Atwill on the way,
received the telegram from him, and hurried back.

It was the despatch of the hour later, and this was it : —

* Mr. Argenter died at five o'clock. His remains will be
sent home to-morrow, carefully attended.

'Philip Burkmayer.'

CHAPTER V.

SPILLED OUT AGAIN.

There were paragraphs in the papers : there were resolu-
tions at meetings of the Board of Trade, and of the Directors
of the Trimountain Bank ; there was a funeral from the
*late residence,' largely attended; there were letters and
calls of condolence ; there was making of crape and bom-
bazine and silk into * mourning;' there were friends and
neighbours asking each other, after mention of the sad sud-
denness, * how it would be ; ' ' how much he had left ; ' * was
there a will ? '

46 THE OTHER GIRLS

And there was a will ; made three years before. One
hundred thousand dollars^ outright, to Increase M. Argenter's
beloved wife : also the use of the homestead : fifty thousand
dollars to his daughter Sylvia on her reaching the age of
twenty-five, or on her marriage ; all to be Mrs. Argenter's
for her lifetime, reverting afterwards to Sylvia or her heirs.

There was just time for this to be ascertained and told of ;
just time for Sylvie to be named as an heiress, and then all
at once something else came to light and was told of.

There was a mining speculation out in Colorado; there
was Mr. Argenter's signature for heavy security ; there were
memoianda of good safe stocks that had stood in his name
a little while, ago, and no certificates ; there had been sales
and sacrifices ; going in deeper and to more certain loss,
because of risk and danger already run.

Mr. Sherrett, senior, came home to dinner one day with
news from the street

* IVe been very sorry to hear this morning that Argenter
left things in a bad way, after all. There won't be much of
anything forthcoming. All swallowed up in mines and lands
that have gone under. That explains the sunstroke. Half
the cases are mere worry and drive. In the old, calm times
it was scarcely heard of. Now, of a hot sunmier's day in
New York, a hundred or two men drop down. And then
they talk of unprecedented heat. It is the heat and the
ferment that have got into life.'

' Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish,' said the
quiet voice of Aunt Euphrasia. ' How strange it is that men
have never interpreted yet !'

' Ah, well ! I'm not sure about sins and judgments. I
don't undertake to blame,' said Mr. Sherrett. * People are
bom into a whirl, nowadays, — the mass of them. How can
they help it?'

* I don't know. But we begin to see how true the words
were, and in what pity they must have been spoken,' said
Aunt Euphrasia. ' Tremendous physical forces have been
grasped and set to work for mere material ends. Spiritual
uses and living haven't kept pace. And so there is a terrible
unbalance, and the tower falls upon men's heads.'

* Well, poor Argenter wasn't a sinner above all that dwelt

SPILLED OUT AGAIN 47

in Jerusalem. And now, there are his wife and daughter.
I'm sorry for them. The/11 find it a hard time/

* I'm sorry, too,' said Aunt Euphrasia, with heart^gentle-
ness. She could not help seeing the eternal laws ; she read
the world and the Word with the inner illumining ; but she
was tender over all the poor souls who were not to blame for
the whirl of fever and falseness they were born intoj who
could not or dared not fling themselves out of it upon the
simple, steadfast, everlasting verities, and — be broken; upon
whom, therefore, these must fall, and grind them to powder.

* How will it be with them?' she asked.

*Do you mean there isn't anything left, sir? Nothing to
carry out the will?'

Rodney had dropped his spoon and left his soup untasted,
since his father first spoke: he had lifted up his eyes quickly,
and listened with his whole face, but he had kept silence
until now.

Amy had looked up also; startled by the news, and wait-
ing to hear more. The young people were both too really
interested, from their intimate knowledge of the first mis*
fortune, to reply with any common * Is it possible ?' to this.

' The will, I am afraid, is only a magnificent " might have
been,"' said Mr. Sherrett * There maybe something se-
cured ; there ought to be. Mrs. Argenter had a small pro-
perty, I believe. Otherwise, as such things turn out, I should
suppose there would be less than nothing.'

*What will they do?' The question came from Aunt
Euphrasia, again. ' Can't somebody help them ? There is
so much money in the world.'

* Yes, Effie. And there is gold in the mines. And there
are plenty of kind affections in the world, too; but there's
loneliness and broken heartedness, for all that. The diffi-
culty always is to bring things together.'

* I suppose that is just \i\x2X people were made for.'

* It will be one more family of precisely that sort whom
nobody can help, directly, and who scarcely know how to
help themselves. The hardest kind of cases.'

* It's an awful spill-out, this time,' Rodney said to Amy, as
she followed him, after her usual fashion, to the piazza, when
dinner was over. * And no mistake V

48 THE OTHER GIRLS

Rodney had brought a cigar with him, but he had for-
gotten his match, and he stood crumbling the end of it,
frowning his brows together in a way they were not often
used to.

'Will they have to go away V asked Amy.

* Out of that house ? Of course. They'll be just tipped out
of everything.'

* How dreadful it will be for Sylvie ! '

* She won't stand round lamenting. I've seen her tipped
out before. Amy, I'll tell you what ; you ought to stick by her.
Maybe she won't want you, at first ; but you ought to do it
Father,' — as Mr. Sherrett came out with his evening paper
to his cane reclining chair, — * you'll go and see Mrs. Argen-
ter, shall you not ? '

* Why, yes, if I could be of any service. But one wouldn't
like to intrude. There are executors to the will. I don't
know that it is quite my place.'

* I don't believe there will be much intruding — of your
sort. And the executors have got nothing to do now. Who
are they ? '

'Jobiing and Cardwell, I believe. Men down town.
Perhaps she might like to see a neighbour. Yes, I think I
will go. You can drive me round, Rodney, some evening
soon. Whom has she, of her own people, I wonder ? '

' Only her sister, Mrs. Lowndes, you know. The brother-
in-law isn't much I imagine.'

' Stephen A. Lowndes "^ No. Broken-down and out of the
world. He couldn't advise to any purpose. I fancy Argenter
has been holding him up.'

' I think theyTl be very glad to see you, sir.'

Rodney drove his father over the next night. Mr.
Sherrett went in alone. Rodney sat in the chaise outside.

Mr. Sherrett waited some minutes after he had sent up
his card, and then Sylvie came down to him, looking pale
in her black dress, and with the trouble really in her young
eyes, over which the brows bent with a strange heaviness.

*I could not persuade mother to come down,' she said.
* She does not feel able to see anybody. But I wanted to
thank you for coming, Mr. Sherrett.'

* I thought an old neighbour might venture to ask if he

SPILLED OUT AGAIN 49

could be of use. A lady needs some one to talk things over
with. I know your mother must have much to think of, and
she cannot have been used to business. I should not come
for a mere call at such a time. I should be glad to be of
some service.'

' Would you be kind enough to sit down a few minutes
and talk with me, Mr. Sherrett ? '

There was a difference already between the Sylvie of
to-day and the Sylvie of a few weeks ago. It was no longer
a question of little nothings, — of how she could get people in
and how she could get them out, — of what she should do and
say to seem 'nice all through,' like Amy Sherrett. Mr.
Sherrett had not come for a ' mere call,' as he said ; and
there was no mere * receiving.' The llama lace and the gray
silk and the small savoirfaire could not help her now. Mrs.
Argenter was upstairs in a black tamise wrapper with a
large plain black shawl folded about her, as she lay in the
chill of a suddenly cool August evening, on the sofa in her
dressing-room, which for the last week or two she had rarely
' left. All at once, Sylvie found that she must think and speak
both for her mother and herself.

Mrs. Argenter could run smoothly in one polished groove;
she was thrown out now, and to her the whole world was off
its axis. Her House that Jack built had tumbled down ; she
thought so, not accepting this strange block that had come
to be wrought in. She had been counting little brick after
little brick that she had watched idly in the piling; now
there was this great weight that she could not deal with, laid
upon her hands for bearing and for using ; she let it crush
her down, not knowing that, fitting it bravely into her life
that was building, it might stand there the very threshold
over which she should pass into perfect shelter of content.

* Mother has been entirely bewildered by all this trouble,'
said Sylvie, quietly, to Mr. Sherrett. *I don't think she
really understands. She has lived so long with things as
they are, that she cannot imagine them different. I think it
is easier with me, because, you know, I haven't been used
to anything such a very long while.'

Sylvie even smiled a tremulous little smile as she said
this ; and Mr. Sherrett looked at her with one upon his own

so THE OTHER GIRLS

face that had as much pitiful tenderness in it as could have
shown through tears.

*You see we shall have to do something right off,— go
somewhere : and mother can't change the least thing. She
can't spare Sabina, who has heard of a good place, and
must go soon at any rate, because nobody else would know
where things belonged or are put away, or fetch her
anything she wanted. And the very things, I suppose,
don't belong to us. How shall we break through and
begin again ? ' Sylvie looked up earnestly at Mr. Sherrett,
asking this question. This was what she really wanted ta
know.

* You will remove, I suppose?' said Mr. Sherrett. * If you
could hear of a house, — if you could, propose something de-
finite, — if you and Sabina could begin to pack up, — ^how
would that be ? '

He met her enquiry with primary, practical suggestions, just
what she needed, wasting no words. He saw it was the best
service he could do this little girl who had suddenly become
the real head of the household.

* I have thought, and thought,' said Sylvie ; ' and after all,
mother must decide. Perhaps she wouldn't want to keep
house. I don't know whether we could. She spoke once
about boarding. But boarding costs a great deal, doesn't it ?'

* To live as you would need to, — yes.'

* I should hate to have to manage small, and change round,
in boarding. I know some people who live so. It would
give me a very mean feeling. It would be like trying to get
a bite of everybody's bread and butter. I'd rather have my
own little loaf.'

* You are a brave, true little woman,' said Mr. Sherrett,
warmly. * All you want is to be set in the right direction,
and see your way. You'll be sure to go on.'

* I think I should. If mother can only be contented. I
think I should rather like it. I could understand living
better. There would only be a little at a time. A great
deal, and a great many things, make it a puzzle.'

' Have you any knowledge about the property ? '

* Mr. Cardwell has been here two or three times. He says
there are twelve thousand dollars secured to mother by a

SPILLED OUT AGAIN 51

note and mortgage on this place. It was money of hers that
was put into it We shall have the income of that ; and
there might be things, perhaps, that we shoiild have the right
to sell, or keep to furnish with. Seven and a half per cent,
on twelve thousand dollars woiild be nine hundred dollars
a year. If we had to pay sixteen dollars a week to board, it
would take eighteen hundred and thirty-two ; almost the
whole of it. But perhaps we could find a place for less ;
and our clothes would last a good while, I suppose.'

Sylvie went through her little calculation, just as she had
made it over and over before, all by herself ; she did not stop
to think that she was doing the small sum now for the
enlightenment of the great Mr. Sherrett, who calculated in
millions for himself and others, every day.

* You would hardly be comfortable in a house which you
could rent for less than — say, four hundred dollars ; and that
would leave very little for your living. Perhaps I should
advise you to board.'

* But we could do things, maybe, if we lived by ourselves,
amongst other people in small houses. We can't be two
things, Mr. Sherrett, rich and poor ; and it seems to me that
is what we should be trying for, if we got into a boarding-
house. We should have to be idle and ashamed. I want
to take right hold. I'd like to earn something and make it do.'

Sylvie's eyes really shone. The spirit that had worked in
her as a little child, to make her think it would be nice to be
a * kitchen girl, and havp a few things in boxes, and Sundays
out,' threw a charm of independence and enterprise and
cosy thrift over her changed position, and the chance it
gave her. Mr. Sherrett wondered at the child, and admired
her very much.

* Could you teach something ? Could you keep a little
school?'

* I've thought about it. But a person must know ever so
much, nowadays, to keep even the least little school. They
want Kindergartens, and all the new plans, that I haven't
learnt. And it's just so about music. You must be scientific ;
and all I really know is a few little songs. But I can dance
well, Mr. Sherrett. I could teach that.'

There was something pathetically amusing in this bringing

B 3

52 THE OTHER GIRLS

to market of her one exquisite accomplishment, learned for
pleasure, and the suggestion of it at this moment, as she sat
in her strange black dress, with the pale, worn look on her
face, in the home so shadowed by heavy trouble, and about
to pass away from their possession.

'You will be sure to do something, I see,' said Mr.
Sherrett. * Yes, I think you had better have a quiet little
home. It will be a centre to work from, and something to
work for. You can easily furnish it from this house. What-
ever has to be done, you could certainly be allowed such
things as you might make a schedule of. Would you like
me to talk for you with Mr. Cardwell, and have something
-arranged V

* O, if you would ! Mother dreads the very sound of Mr.
Cardwell's name, and the thought of business. She cannot
bear it now. But your advice would be so different ! '

Sylvie knew that it would go far with Mrs. Argenter that
Mr. Rowland Sherrett, in the relation of neighbour and
friend, should plan and suggest for them, rather than Mr.
Richard Cardwell, a stranger and mere man of business,
should come and tell them things that must be.

' I'm afraid you'll think I don't realise things, I've planned
and imagined so much,' Sylvie began again, * but I couldn't
help thinking. It is all I have had to do. There's a little
house in Upper Dorbury that always seemed to me so pretty
and pleasant ; and nobody lives there now. At least, it was
all shut up the last time I drove by. The house with the
<;omer piazza and the green side yard, and the dark red
roof sloping down, just off the road in the shady turn beside
the bank that only leads to two other little houses beyond.
Do you know?'

Mr. Sherrett did know. They were three houses built by
members of the same family, some years ago, upon an old
village homestead property. Two of them had passed into
other hands ; one — this one — ^remained in its original owner-
ship, but had been rented of late ; since the war, in which
the proprietor had made money, and with it had bought a
city residence in Chester Park.

' You see we must go where things will be convenient. We
can't ride round after fhem any more. And we could get a

SPILLED OUT AGAIN 55

girl up there, as^ other people do, for general housework. Fm
afraid mother wouldn't quite like being in the village, but of
course there can't be anything that she would quite like, now.
And we aren't really separate people any longer ; at least,
we don't belong to the separate kind of people, and I couldn't
bear to be lonesomely separate. It's good to belong to some
kind of people ; isn't it ?'

* I think it is very good to belong to your kind, wherever
they are. Miss Sylvie. Tell your mother I say she may be
glad of her daughter. I'll find out about the house for you,
at any rate. And I'll see Mr. Cardwell ; and I'll call again.
Good night, my dear. God bless you ! '

And the grand Mr. Rowland Sherrett pressed Sylvie
Argenter's hand in both of his, as a father might have pressed
it, and went out with the feeling of a warm rush from his
heart towards his eyes.

' That's a girl like a — whatever there is that means the
noblest sort of woman, and I'm not sure it is a queen !' he
said to Rodney, as he seated himself in the chaise, and took
the reins from his son's hands.

Mr. Sherrett was apt to say to Rodney, ' You may drive
me to this or that place,' but he was very apt, also, to do the
driving himself, after all ; especially if he was somewhat pre-
occupied, and forgot, as he did now.

The way Mr. Rowland Sherrett enquired about the red-
roofed house, was this:

He went down to Mr. John Homer's store, in Opal Street,
and asked him what was the rent of it.

*Six hundred and fifty dollars.'

' Rather high, isn't it, for the situation V

*Not for the situation of the land, I guess,* said Mr.
Homer* * I'm paying annexation taxes.'

* What will you sell the property for as it stands ?*

* Eighty-five hundred dollars.'

'I'll give you eight thousand, Mr. Homer, in cash, upon
condition that you will not mention its having changed hands.
I have some friends whom I wish should live there,' he
added, lest some deep speculating move should be surmised.

Mr. Homer thought for the space of thirty seconds, after
the rapid Opal Street fashion, and said, —

54 THE OTHER GIRLS

* You may have it. When will you take the deed V
'To-morrow morning, at eleven o'clock. Will that be

convenient V

* All right. Yes, sir.'

And the next morning at eleven o'clock, the two gentlemen
exchanged papers ; Mr. Homer received a cheque on the
First National Bank for eight thousand dollars, and Me.
Sherrett the title-deed to house and land on North Centre
Street, Dorbury, known as part of the John Horner estate,
and bordering so and so, and so on.

The same afternoon, Mr. Sherrett called at Mrs. Ar-
genter's, and told her of the quiet, pleasant, retired, yet
central house and garden in Upper Dorbury, which he
found she could have on a lease of two or three years, for
a rent of three hundred and fifty dollars. It was in the hands
of a lawyer in the village, who would make out the lease and
receive the payments. He had enquired it out, and would
conclude the arrangements for her, if she desired.

* I don't know that I desire anything, Mr. Sherrett: I
suppose I must do what I can, since it seems I am not to be
left in my own home which I put my own money into. If
it appears suitable to you, I have no doubt it is right. I am
very much obliged to you, I am sure. Sylvie knows the
house, and has an idea she likes it. She is childish, and
likes changing. She will have enough of it, I am afraid.'

She did not even care to go over and inspect the house.
Sylvie was glad of that, for she knew it could be made to
seem more homelike, if she and Sabina could get the par-
lour and her mother's rooms ready before Mrs. Argenter saw
it. During the removal, it was settled that they should go
and stay with Mrs. Lowdnes, at River Point. This practi-
cally resulted in Mrs. Argenter's remaining with her sister
while Sylvie and Sabina spent their time, night as well as
day, often, between Argenter Place and the new house.

Rodney Sherrett rode through the village one day, when
they were busy there with their arrangements.

Sylvie stood on a high flight of steps in the bay-window,
putting up some white muslin curtains, with little frills on
the edges. They had been in a sleeping-room at Argenter
Place. All the furniture of the house had been appraised.

SPILLED OUT AGAIN 55

and an allowance made of two thousand dollars, to which
amount Mrs. Argenter might reserve such articles as she
wished, at the valuation. So much, and two thousand
dollars in cash, were given her in exchange for her home-
stead and her right of dower in the unincumbered portion of
the estate, upon which was one other smaller mortgage. No
other real property appeared in the list of assets. Mr. Ar-
genter had, unfortunately, invested almost wholly in bonds,
stocks, and those last ruinous mining ventures. The land
out in Colorado was useless ; and besides, being wild land,
did not come under the law of dower.

Mrs. Argenter thought it was all very strange, especially
that a sum of money, — eighteen hundred dollars, which was
in her husband's desk, the proceeds of some little mortgage
that he had just sold, — was not hers to keep. She came
very near stealing it from the estate, quietly appropriating it,
without meaning to be dishonest ; regarding it as simply
money in the house, which her husband * would have given
her, if she had wanted it, the very day before he died.'

Possibly he might ; but the day after he died, it was no
longer his nor hers. •

To go back to Sylvie in the bay-window. Rodney rode
by, then wheeled about and came back as far as the stone
sidewalk before the Bank entrance. He jumped off, hitched
Red Squirrel to one of the posts that sentineled the curb-
stone, and passed quietly round into the * shady turn.'

The front door was open, and boxes stood in the passage ;
he walked in as far as the parlour door ; then he tapped with
his riding-whip against the frame of it. Sylvie started on
her perch, and began to come down.

* Don't stop. I couldn't help coming in, seeing you as
I went by,' said Rodney.

Sylvie sat down on one of the middle steps. She would
rather keep still than exhibit herself in any further move-
ment. Rodney ought to have known better than go in then ;
if, indeed, he did not know better than Sylvie herself did, how
very pretty and graceful she looked, all out of regular and
ordinary gear.

She had taken off her hoops, for her climbing ; her soft,
long black dress fell droopingly about her figfure and rested

56 THE OTHER GIRLS

in folds around and below her feet as she sat upon the step-
ladder ; one thick braid of her sunshiny hair had dropped
from the fastening which had looped it up to her head, and
hung, raveling into threads of light down over her shoulder
and into her lap ; her cheeks were bright with exercise ; her
eyes, that trouble and thought had sobered lately to dove-
gray, were deep, brilliant blue again. She was excited with
her work, and flushed now with the surprise of Rodney's
coming in.

* How pretty you are going to look here,' said Rodney,
glancing about.

The carpet Sylvie had chosen for the parlour — for though
Mrs. Argenter had feebly discussed and ostensibly dictated
the list as Sylvie wrote it down, she had really given up all
choosing to her with a reiterated, helpless, ' As you please,'
at every question that came up — was a small figured Brussels
of a soft, shadowy water-gray, with a border in an arabesque
pattern. This had been upon a guest chamber ; the winter
carpet of the drawing-room was an Axminster, and Sylvie's
ideas did not base themselves on Axminsters now, even if
they might have done so with a two thousand dollar allow-
ance. She only hoped her mother would not feel as if there
were no drawing room at all, but the whole house had been
put up-stairs.

The window draperies were as I have said ; there was a
large, plain library table in the middle of the room, with
books and baskets and little easels with pictures, and paper
weights and folders, and other such like small articles of use
and grace and cosy expression lying about upon it, as if
people had been there quite a while and grown at home.
There were bronze candelabra on the mantel and upon
brackets each side the bay window. Pictures were already
hung, — portraits, and gifts, not included in the schedule — a
few nice engravings, and one glowing piece of colour, by Mrs.
Murray, which Sylvie said was Uke a fire in the room.

* I am only afraid it is too fine,' said she, replying to
Rodney. ' I really want to be like our neighbours, — to be a
neighbour. We belong here now. People should not drop
out of the world, between ranks, when changes happen ; they
can't change out of humanity. Do you know, Mr. Sherrett,

SPILLED OUT AGAIN 57

if it wasn't for the thought of my poor father, and my mother
not caring about anything any more, — I know I should enjoy
the chance of being a village girl V

*• You'll be a village girl, I imagine, as your parlour is a
village parlour. All in good faith, but wearing the rue with
a difference.'

' I don't mean to. IVe been thinking — ever so much ; aud
I've found out a good many things. It's this not falling on
to anything that keeps people in the misery of falling. I
mean to come to land, right here. I guess I pre-existed as a
barefoot maiden. There's a kind of homeishness about it,
that there never was in being elegant. I wonder if I have
got anything in here that has no business ?'

*Not a scrap. I've no doubt the blacksmith's wife's
parlour is finer. But you can't put the character out.'

* I mean to have plants, now ; in this bay window. I guess
I can, now that we have no conservatory. Village people
always have plants in their windows, and mother won't want
to see the street staring in.'

* Have you brought some ?'

* How could I ? Those great oranges and daphnes? No :
I shall have little window plants and raise them.'

* But meanwhile, won't the street be staring in?'

* Well, we ckn keep the blinds shut, for the warm weather.^

* Amy will come and see you, when you are settled; Amy
and Aunt Euphrasia; you'll let them, won't you? You don't
mean to be such a violent village girl as to cut all your old
friends ?'

* Old friends ?' Sylvie repeated, thoughtfully. 'Well, it
does seem almost old. But I didn't think I knew any of you
v'ery well, only a little while ago.'

* Until the overturns,' said Rodney. ' It takes a shaking
up, I suppose, sometimes, to set things right. That's what
the Shaker people believe has got to be generally. Do you
know, the Scotch — Aunt Euphrasia is Scotch — have a way of
using the word "upset" to mean " set up." I think that is
what you make it mean, Miss Sylvie. I understand the phi-
losophy of it now. I got my first illustration when I tipped
you out there at the baker's door.'

* You tipped me out into one of the nicest places I ever

58 THE OTHER GIRLS

was in. Pve no doubt it was a piece of the preparation. I
mean to have Ray Ingraham for my intimate friend.'

Rodney Sherrett did not say anything immediately to this.
He sat on the low cricket upon which he had placed himself
near the door, turning his soft felt hat over and over between
his hands. He was not quite ready to perceive as yet, that
the baker's daughter was just the person for Sylvie Argenter's
intimate friend ; and he had a dim suspicion, likewise, that
there was something in the girl-constitution that prevented
the being able to have more than one intimate friend.

He repeated presently his assurance that Amy and Aunt
Euphrasia would come over to see them, and took himself
off, saying that he knew he must have been horribly in the
way all the time.

The next morning, a light covered waggon, driven by Mr.
Sherretf s man, Rodgers, came up the Turn. There was
nobody at the red-roofed house so early, and he set down in
the front porch what he took carefully, one at a time, from
the vehicle, — some two dozen lovely greenhouse plants, newly
potted from the choicest and most flourishing growth of the
season.

When Sylvie and Sabina came round from the ten o'clock
street car, they stumbled suddenly upon this beauty that
encumbered the entrance. To a branch of glossy green,
luxuriant ivy was tied a card, —
< Rodney Sherrett,

With friendly compliments.'
* Sylvie really sung at her work to-day, placing and re-
placing till she had grouped the whole in her wire frames in
the bay window so as to show every leaf and spray in light
and line aright

* Why, it is prettier than it ever was at the old place ; ^isn't
it, Sabina ? It's full and perfect ; and that was always a great
barrenness of glass. The street can't stare in now. I think
mother will be able to forget that there is even a street at all.'

* It's real nobby,' said Sabina.

The room was all soft green and gray : green rep chairs
and sofa, green-topped library table ; green piano cover ;
green inside blinds ; a green velvet grape-leaf border around
the gray-papered walls.

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 59

Sabina, though a very elegant housemaid, patronised and
approved cheerfully. She was satisfied with the new home.
There had not been a word of leaving since it was decided
upon. She liad her reasons. Sabina was ' promised to be
inarried ' next spring. Dignity in her profession was not so
much of an object meantime, nor even wages ; she had laid
Tip money and secured her standing, living always in the
first families ; she could afford to take it in a quiet way ; * it
wouldn't be so bothering nor so dressy ; ' Sabina had a
saving turn with her best things, that spared both trouble
and money. Besides, her kitchen windows and the back
door suited her ; they looked across a bit of unoccupied
land to the back street where the cabinet-shop buildings
were. Sabina was going to marry into the veneering pro-
fession.

CHAPTER VI.

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR.

Mr. Ingraham, the baker, did not die that day when the
doctor's chaise stood at the door, and all the children in the
village were sent in for brick loaves. He was only struck
down helpless ; to lie there and be waited on ; to linger, and
wonder why he lingered ; to feel himself in the way, and a
burden ; to get used to all this, and submit to it, and before
he died to see that it had been all right.

The bakery lease had yet two years to run. It might
have been sold out, but that would have involved a breaking
up and a move, which Ingraham himself was not fit to
bear, and his wife and daughters were not willing to think
of yet.

Rachel quietly said, — as soon as her father was so far
restored and comfortable that he could think and speak of
things with them, —

* I can go on with the bakehouse. I know how. The
men will all stay. I spoke to them Saturday night.'

Ray kept the accounts, and when Saturday night came,
the first after the misfortune fell upon them, she called all

6o THE OTHER GIRLS

the journeymen into the little bakery office, where she sat
upon the high stool at her father's desk. She gave each his
week's wages, asking each one, as he signed his name
in receipt, to wait a minute. Then she told them all, that
she meant, if her father consented, to keep on with the
business.

' He may get well/ she said. * Will you all stand by and
help me ? '

* Deed and we wull,' said Irish Martin, the newest, the
smallest, and the stupidest — if a quick heart and a willing
will can be stupid — of them all. Some stupidity is only
brightness not properly hitched on.

Ray found that she had to go on making brick loaves,
however. She must keep her men ; she could not expect to-
train them all to new ways ; she must not make radical ex-
periments in this trust-work, done for her father, to hold
things as they were for him. Brick loaves, family loaves,
rolls, brown bread, crackers, cookies, these had to be made
as the journeymen knew how ; as bakers' men had made
them ever since and before Mother Goose wrote the dear
old pat-a-cake rhyme.

Ray wondered why, when everybody liked home bread
and home cake, — if they could stop to make them and knew
how, — ^home bread and cake could not be made in big bake-
house ovens also, and by the quantity. She thought this
was one of the things women might be able to do better
than men ; one of the bits of world business that women
forced to work outside of homes might accomplish. Once *
men had been necessary for the big, multiplied labour: now
there was machinery to help, for kneading, for rolling: there
was steam for baking, even ; there were no longer the great
caverns to be filled with firewood, and cleared by brawny,
seasoned arms, when the breath of them was like the breath
of the furnace seven times heated, in which walked Sha-
drach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Ray had often thoughts to herself ; thoughts here and
there, that touched from fresh sides the great agitations of
the day, which she felt instinctively were beginning wrong^
end foremost. * I will work ; I will speak,' cry the women.
Very well ; what hinders, if you have anything really to do.

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 6i

really to say ? Opportunities are widening in the very na-
ture and development of things ; they are showing them-
selves at many a turn ; but they give definite business, here
and there ; they quiet down those who take real hold.
Outcry is no business ; that is why the idle women take to
it, and will do nothing else. It is not they who are moving
the world forward to the clear sun-rising of the good day
that must shine. People whose shoulders are at steady,
small, unnoticed wheels are doing that

Dot stayed in the house and helped her mother. She had
a sewing machine also, and she took in work from the
neighbours, and from ladies like Miss Euphrasia Kirkbright,
and Mrs. Greenleaf, and Mrs. Farland, who drove over to
bring it from Roxeter, and East Mills, and River Point.

* Why don't you call and see me ? ' Sylvie Argenter asked
one day, when she had walked over to the shop with a small
basket, in which to put bread, little fine rolls for her mother,
and some sugar cookies. Ray and Dot were both there.
Dot was sitting with her sewing, putting in finishing-stitches,
button-holes, and the like. She was behind the counter,
ready to mind the calls. Ray had come in to see what was
wanting of fresh supplies from the bakehouse.

* I've been expecting you ever since we moved into the
Turn. Ain't I to have any neighbours ?'

The little court-way behind the bank had come to be
called the Turn ; Sylvie took the name as she found it ; as
it named itself to her also in the first place, before she Imew
that others called it so. She liked it ; it was one of those
names that tell just what a thing is ; that have made
English nomenclature of places, in the old, original land
above all, so quaint and full of pleasant home expression.

Dot looked up in surprise. It had never entered her head
that the Argenters would expect them to call ; and indeed,
the Argenters, in the plural, were very far indeed from any
such imagination.

Ray took it more quietly and coolly.

* We are always very busy, since my father has been sick,'*
she said. * We hardly go to see our old friends. But if you
would like it, we will try and come, some day.'

' I want you to,' said Sylvie. * But I don't want you to cally

62 THE OTHER GIRLS

though I said so. I want you to come right in and see me.
I never could bear calls, and I don't mean ever to begin
with them again.'

The Highfords had come' and ' called/ in the carriage,
with pearl-kid gloves and long-tailed carriage dresses; called
in such a way that Sylvie knew they would probably never
call again. It was a last shading off of the old acquaintance;
a decent remembrance of them in their low estate, just not
to be snobbish on the vulgar face of it; a visit that had sent
her mother to bed with a mortified and exasperated head-
ache, and taken away her slight appetite for the delicate
little ' tea' that Sylvie brought up to her on a tray.

The Ingrahams saw she really meant it, and they came in
one evening at first, when they were walking by, and Sylvie
salt alone, with a book, in the twilight, on the comer piazza.
Her mother had been there; her easy-chair stood beside the
open window, but she had gone in and laid down upon the
sofa. Mrs. Argenter had drooped, physically, ever since the
grief and change. It depends upon what one's life is, and
where is the spring of it, and what it feeds upon, how one
rallies from a shock of any sort. The ozone had been taken
out of her atmosphere. There was nothing in all the sweet
sunshine of generous days, or the rest of calm-brooding
nights, to restore her, cr to belong to her any more. She
had nothing to breathe. She had nothing to grow to, or to
put herself in rapport with. She was out of relation with all
the great, full world.

* Whom did you have there?' she asked Sylvie, when Ray
and Dot were gone, and she came in to see if her mother
would like anything.

'The Ingrahams, mother; our neighbours, you know;
they are nice girls ; I like them. And they were very kind
to me the day of my accident, you remember. I called first,
you see ! And besides,' she added, loving the whole truth, ' I
told them the other morning I should like them to come.'

' I don't suppose it makes any difference,' Mrs. Argenter
answered, listlessly, turning her head away upon the sofa
cushion.

* It makes the difference, Amata,' said Sylvie, with a bright
gentleness, and touching her mother's pretty hair with a

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 63

tender finger, * that I shall be a great deal happier and better
to know such girls ; people we have got to live amongst, and
ought to live a little like. You can't think how pleasant it
was to talk with them. All my life it has seemed as if I
never really got hold of people.'

* You certainly forget the Sherretts.'

* No, I don't. But I never got hold of them much while I
was just edging alongside. I think some people grasp hands
the better for a little space to reach across. You mayn't be
born quite in the purple, as Susan Nipper would say, but it
isn't any reason you should try to pinch yourself black and
blue. I've got all over it, and I like the russet a great deal
better. I wish you could.'

' I can't begin again,' said Mrs. Argenter. * My life is torn
up by the roots, and there is the end of it.'

It was true. Sylvie felt that it was so, as her mother spoke,
and she reproached herself for her own light content. How
could her mother make intimacy with Mrs. Knoxwell, the old
blacksmith's wife, or Mrs. Pevear, the carriage-painter's ? Or
even good, homely Mrs. Ingraham, over the jDake-shop .? , It
is so much easier for girls to come together ; girls of this
day, especially, who in all classes get so much more of the
same things than their mothers did.

Sylvie, authorised by this feeble acquiescence in what made
' no difference,' went on with her intention of having Ray
Ingraham for her intimate friend. She spent many an hour,
as the summer wore away, at the time in the afternoon when
Mrs. Argenter was always lying down, in the pleasant bed-
room over the shop, that looked out under the elm tree. This
was Ray Ingraham's leisure also ; the bread carts did not
come in till tea-time, with their returns and orders ; the day's
second baking was in the oven ; she had an hour or two of
quiet between the noon business and the night ; then she was
always glad to see Sylvie Arg^ter come down the street
with her little purple straw work-basket swinging from her
forefinger, or a book in her hand. Sylvie and Ray read new
books together from the Dorbury library, and old ones from
Mrs. Argenter's book-shelves. Dot was not so often with
them ; her leisure was given more to her flower beds, where
all sorts of blooms, — bright petunias and verbenas, delicate

64 THE OTHER GIRLS

sweet peas and v golden lantanas, scarlet bouvardias and
snowy deutzias, fairy, fragrant jessamines, white and crimson
and rose-tinted fuchsias with their purple hearts, and
pansies, poised on their light stems, in every rich colour,
like beautiful winged things half alighted in a great fluttering
flock, — made a glory and a sweetness in the modest patch of
ground between the grape-trellised wall of the house-end and
the bricks of the bakery, against which grew, appropriately
enough, some strings of hop vines.

* I think it is just the nicest place in the world,* said Sylvie,
in her girlish, unqualified speech, as they all stood there one
evening, while Dot was cutting a bouquet for Sylvie's
mother. ' People that set out to have everything beautiful,
get the same things over and over ; gravelled drives and a
smooth lawn, and trees put into groups tidily, and circles and
baskets of flowers, and a view, perhaps, of a village away off,

, or a piece of the harbour, or a peep at the hills. But you are
right down amongst such niceness ! There's the river, close
iDy; you can hear it all night, tumbling along behind the
mills and the houses ; there are the woods just down the lane
l)eside the bakehouse ; and here is the door-stone and the
shady trellis, and the yard crowded full of flowers, as if they
had all come because they wanted to, and knew they should
have a good time, like a real country party, instead of
standing off in separate propemess, as people do who " go
into society." And the new bread smells so sweet ! I think
if s what-for and because that make it so much better.
Somebody came here to do something; and the rest was,
and happened, and grew. I can't bear things fixed up to be
exquisite ! '

* That is the real doctrine of the kingdom of heaven,' said
a sweet, cheery voice behind them. They all turned round;
Miss Euphrasia Kirkbright stood upon the door-stone.

'Being and doing. Then the surrounding is borne out
of the living. The Lord, up there, lets the saints make
their own glory.'

* Then you don't think the golden streets are all paved
hard, beforehand?' said Sylvie. She understood Miss
Euphrasia, and chimed quickly into her key. She had had
talks with her before this, aiyi she liked them.

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 65

'No more than that,' said Miss Kirkbright, pointing to
the golden flush under the soft, piling clouds in the west,
that showed in gUmpses beneath the arches of the trees
and across the openings behind the village buildings. '"New
•every morning, and fresh every evening." Doesn't He show
us how it is, every day's work that He himself begins and
•ends ? '

*Do you think we shall ever live like that?' asked Ray
Ingraham, perceiving.

" * Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, in the
kingdom of their Father," ' repeated Miss Euphrasia. * And
the shining of the sun makes his worlds around him, doesn't
it ? We shall create outside of us whatever is in us. We do
it now, more than we know. We shall find it all, by and by,
ready, — whatever we think we have missed; the building
not made with hands.'

* I'm afraid we shall find ourselves in queer places, some
of us,' said Dot. Dot had a way of putting little round
practical periods to things. She did not do it with intent to
l)e smart, or epigrammatic. She simply announced her own
most obvious conclusion.

' " The first last." That is a part of the same thing. The
rich man and Lazarus ; knowing as we are known ; being
■clothed upon ; unclothed and not found naked ; the wedding
garment. You cannot touch one link of spiritual fact,
without drawing a whole chain after it. Some other time,
laying hold somewhere else, the same sayings will be brought
to mind again, to confirm the new thought. It is all alive,
breathing ; spirit in atoms, given to move and crystallise to
whatever central magnetism, always showing some fresh
phase of what is one and everlasting.'

Miss Euphrasia could no more help talking so — given
the right circumstances to draw her forth — than she
could help breathing. Her whole nature was fluid to the
truth, as the atoms she spoke of. Talking with her, you saw,
as in a divine kaleidoscope, the gleams and shiftings and
combinings of heavenly and internal things; shown in
simplest movings and relations of most real and every day
experience and incident

But she never went on — and * went over,' exhorting. She

6(5 THE OTHER GIRLS

did not believe in discourses^ she said, even from the pulpit
— ^very much. She believed in a sermon^ and letting it go.
And a sermon is just a word ; as the Word gives itself, in
some fresh manna-particle, to any soul.

So when the girls stood silent, as girls will, not knowing
how to break a pause that has come upon such speaking, she
broke it herself, with a very simple question ; a question of
mere little business that she had come to ask Dot.

* Were the little under-kerchiefs done ?'

It was just the same sweet, cheery tone; she dropped
nothing , she took up nothing, turning from the inward to
the outside. It was all one quiet, harmonious sense of
wholeness ; living, and expression of living. That was what
made Miss Euphrasia's ' words ' chord so pleasantly always^
without any jar, upon whatever string was being played ; and
the impulse and echo of them to run on through the music
afterwards, as one clear bell-stroke marking an accent, will
seem to send its lingering impression through the unaccented
measures following.

Dot went into the house and got the things ; fine cambric
neck-covers, frilled around the throat with delicate lace.
She folded them small, and put them in a soft paper. Miss
Kirkbright took the parcel, and paid Dot the money for
her work ; she gave her three dollars. Then she said to
Sylvie, —

* Will you walk as far as the car comer with me 1 I have
missed a real call that I meant to have had with you. I
have been to your house.'

* Did you see mother ? ' 3ylvie asked, as they walked on,,
having said good-by, and passed out through the shop.

'No :-Sabina said she was lying down, and I would not
have her disturbed, I came partly to tell you a little news.
Amy is engaged to Mr. Robert Truesdaile. They will be
married in the fall, and go out to England. He has relatives
there ; his mother's family. There is an uncle living near
Manchester ; a large cottbn manufacturer ; he would like
to take his hephew into the business ; he has a great desire
to get him there and make an Englishman of him.'

'Does Amy like it? I mean, going to England ? lam
ever so glad for her being so happy.'

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 67

* Yes, she likes it. At any rate she likes, as we all do, the
new pleasant beginnings. We are all made to like fresh
comers to turn, unless they seem very dark ones, or unless
we have grown very old and tired, which / think there is
never any need of doing.'

' How busy she will be ! ' was Sylvie's next remark, made
after a pause in which she realised to herself the news, an4
received also a little suggestion from it.

' Yes, pretty busy. But such preparations are made easily
in these days.'

* Won't there be ever so many little things of that sort to
be done ? ' asked Sylvie, signifying the parcel which Miss
Kirkbright held lightly in her fingers. * I wish I could do
some of them. I mean,' — she gathered herself up bravely
to say, — ' I should like dearly to do anything for Amy ; bmt
I have thought it would be a good plan — if I could — to do
something like that for the sake of earning ; as Dot Ingra-
hani does.'

* Do you not have quite enough money, my dear ? ' asked
Miss Kirkbright, in her kindly direct way that could never
hurt.

* Not quite. At least, it don't seem to go very far. There
are always things that we didn't expect. And things count
up so at the grocer's. And a little nice meat every day, —
which we have to have, — turns out so very expensive. And
Sabina's wages — and mother's wine — and cream-- and fresh
eggs, — I get so worried when the bills come in ! '

Sylvie's voice trembled with the effort and excitement of
telling her money and housekeeping troubles.
< ' Sometimes I think we ought to have a cheaper girl ; but
I have just as much as I can do, — of those kinds of work, —
and a poor girl would waste everything if I left her to go
on. And I don't know much, myself. If Sabina were to
go, — and she will next spring, — I am afraid it would turn out
that we should have to keep two,'

For all Sylvie's little * afternoons out,' it was very certain

that she, and Sabina also, did have their hands full at home.

It is wonderful how much work one person, who does none

* of it and who must live fastidiously, can make in a small

household. From Mrs. Argenter's hot water, and largo

F 2

68 THE OTHER GIRLS

bath, and late breakfast in the morning, to her glass of milk
at nine o'clock at night, which she never could remember to
carry up herself from the tea-table, — she needed one person
constantly to look after her individual wants. And she
couldn't help it, poor lady, either ; that is the worst of it ;
one gets so as not to be able to help things ; * it was the
shape of her head,' Sabina said, in a phrase she had learned
of the cabinet-maker,

* You shall have anything you can do ; just as Dot does,'
said Miss Euphrasia. ' And Amy will like it all the better
for your doing. You can put the love into the work, as
much as we shall into the pay.*

Was there ever anybody who handled the bare facts of
life so graciously as this Miss Euphrasia ? She did it by
taking right hold of them by their honest handles,— as they
were meant to be taken hold of.

* You like your home 1 You haven't grown tired of being
a village girl ? ' she said, as she and Sylvie sat down on a
great flat projecting rock in the shaded walk beside the
railroad track. They had just missed one car ; there would
not be another for twenty minutes.

* O, yes. No ; I haven't got tired ; but I don't feel as if
I had quite been it, yet. I donk think I am exactly that, or
anything, now. That is the worst of it. People don't
understand. They won't take us in, — all of them. It's
just as hard to get into a village, if you weren't bom in it,
as it is to get into upper-ten-dom. Mrs. Knoxwell called,
and looked round all the time with her nose up in a sort of
way, — well, it was just like a dog sniffing round for some-
thing. And she went off and told about mother's poor,
dear, old black silk dress, that I made into a cool skirt and
jacket for her. " Some folks must be always set up in silk,
she sposedJ' Everybody isn't like the Ingrahams.'

* No garment of this life fits exactly. There was only
one seamless robe. But we mustn't take thought for rai-
ment, you see. The body is more. And at last, — somehow,
sometime, — ^we shall all be clothed perfectly — with His
righteousness.'

This was too swift and light in its spiritual touching and

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 69

linking for Sylvie to follow. She had to ask, as the dis-
ciples did, for a meaning.

* It isn't clothes that I am thinking of, or that trouble me ;
or any outside. And I know it isn't actual clothes you
mean. Please tell me plainer, Miss Euphrasia.'

* I mean that I think He meant by ***raiment," not clothes
so much as life ; what we put on or have put on to us ;
what each soul wears and moves in, to feel itself by and to
be manifest; history, circumstance. "Raiment" — "gar-
ment,"— the words always stand for this, beyond their tem-
porary and technical sense. " He laid aside his garment^
— He gave up His own life that He might have been living,
— ^to come and wash our feet ! '

'And the people cast their garments before Him, when
He rode into Jerusalem,' Sylvie said presently.

' Yes ; that is the way He must come into His kingdom,
and lead us with Him. We are to give up our old ways,
and the selfish things we lived in once, and not think about
our own raiment any more. He will give it to us, as He
gives it to the lilies ; and the glory of it will be something
that we could not in any way spin for ourselves. And by
and by it will come to be full and right, all through ; we
shall be clothed with His righteousness. What is righteous-
ness but rightness ? '

* I thought it only meant goodness. That we hadn't any
goodness of our own ; that we mustn't trust in it, you
know?'

* But that His, by faith, is to cover us ? That is the old
letter-doctrine, which men didn't look through to see how
graciously true it is, and how it gives them all things. For
it is things they want, all the time ; realities of experience
and having. They talk about an abstract "justification by
faith," and struggle for an abstract experience ; not seeing
how good God is to tell th6m plainly that His "justifying" is
setting everything right for them, and round them, and in
Aem : His rightness is sufficient for them ; they need not go
sCbout, worrying, to establish their own. The minute they
give up their wrongness, and fall into its line, it works for
tnem as no working of their own could do. God doesn't
forgive a soul ideally, and leave it a mere clean, naked con-

70 THE OTHER GIRLS

sciousness ; He brings forth the best robe and puts it on ; a
ring for the hand and shoes for the feet People try painfully
to achieve a ghostly sort of regeneration that strips them
and leaves them half dead. The Lord heals and binds up,
and puts His own garment upon us ; He knows that we have
need^ Miss Kirkbright repeated, earnestly. ' Salvation is a
real havinjg ; not an escape without anything, as people run
for their lives from fire or flood.'

Sylvie had listened with a shining face.

*You get it all from that one word, — "raiment." Your
words — ^the words you find out. Miss Kirkbright, — are living
things.'

* Yes, words are living things,' Miss Kirkbright answered.
' God does not give us anything dead. But the life of them
is His spirit, and His spirit is an instant breath. You can
take them as if they were dead, if you do not inspire. Men
who wrote these words, inspired. We talk about their being
inspired, as if it were a passive thing ; and quarrel about it,
and forget to breathe ourselves. It is all there, just as live
as it ever was ; it is givpn over again every time we go for
it ; when we find it so, we never need trouble any more about
authority. We shall only thank God that He has kept in
the world the records of His talk with men ; and the more
we talk with Him ourselves, the deeper we shall understand
their speech.' '

* Isn't all that about ** inner meanings," — that words in the
Bible stand for, — Swedenborgian, Miss Kirkbright ? '

'Well?' Miss Kirkbright smiled.

*Are you a Swedenborgian?' Sylvie asked the question
timidly.

* I believe in the New Church,' answered Miss Euphrasia.
* But I don't believe in it as standing apart, locked up in a
system. I believe in it as a leaven of all the churches ; a
life and soul that is coming into them. I think a separate
body is a mistake ; though I like to worship with the iittle
family with which I find myself most kin. We should do
that without any name. The Lord gave a great deal to
Swedenborg : but when His time comes, He doesn't give all
in any one place, or to any one soul ; His coming is as the
lightening from the one part to the other part under heaven.

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR n

Lightening — not lightning ; it is wrongly printed so, I think.
He set the sun in the sky, once and forever, when He came
in His Christ ; since then, day after day dawns, everywhere,
and uttereth speech; and even night after night showeth
knowledge. I believe in the fuller, more inward dispensation.
Swedenborg illustrated it, — received it, wonderfully ; but
many are receiving the same at this hour, without ever
having heard of Swedenborg. For that reason we may
never be afraid about the truth. It is not here or there.
This or that may fail or pass away, but the Word shall never
pass away.'

' What a long talk we have had ! How did we get
into it ? '

The car was coming 'up the slope, half a mile off. They
•could see the red top of it rising, and could hear the tinkle
of the bell.

* I wish we didn't need to get out ! ' said Sylvie. * I wish I
could tell it to my mother! '

* Can't you ? '

'I'm afraid it wouldn't keep alive, — with me,' Sylvie
answered, with a little sigh and shadow, * Not even as these
flowers will that I am taking to her. I can take, — but I
can't give, and I always feel so 'that I ought to. Mother
needs the comfort of it. Why don't you come and talk to
her, Miss Kirkbright 1 '

'Talk on purpose never does. You and I " got into it," as
you say. Perhaps your mother and I might. But I have got
over feeling about such sort of giving — in words — as a duty.
Even with people whom I work among sometimes, who need
the very first gift of truth, so much ! We can only keep near
and dear to each other, Sylvie, and near and dear to the
Lord, Then there are the two lines ; and things that are
equal — or similarly related— to the same thing, are related
to one another. He .can make the mark that proves and
joins, any time. Did you know there was Bible in geometry,
Sylvie? I very often go to my old school Euclid for a
heavenly comfort.'

* I think you go to everything for it — and to everybody
with it,' said Sylvie, squeezing her friend's hand as she left
her on the car-step.

72 THE OTHER GIRLS

Nothing comes much before we need it. This talk stayed
by Sylvie through months afterwards, if not the word of it,
always the subtle cheer and strength of it, that nestled inta
her heart underneath all her upper thinkings and cares of
day by day, and would not quite let them settle down upon
the living core of it with a hopeless pressure.

For the real stress of her new life was bearing upon her
heavily. The first poetry, the first fresh touches with which
she had made pleasant signs about their altered condition,,
were passed into established use, and dulled into womness
and commonness. The difficulties — the grapples — came
thick and forceful about her. At the same time, her reliances
seemed slipping away from her.

She had hardly known, any more than her mother, how
much the countenance and friendliness of the Sherrett family
had done in upholding her. It was a link with the old
things — the very best of the old things, — that stood as a
continual assurance that they themselves were not altered — ^
lowered in any way — by their alterings. This came to
Sylvie with an interior confirmation, as it did to Mrs.
Ajgenter exteriorly. So long as Miss Kirkbright and the
Sherretts indorsed anything, it could not harm them much,
or fence them out altogether from what they had been. Amy
Sherrett and Miss Kirkbright thought well of the Ingrahams,
and maintained all their dealings with them in a friendly —
even intimate — fashion. If Sylvie chose to sit with them of
an afternoon, it was no more than Miss Euphrasia did. Also,,
the old Miss Goodwyns, who lived up the Turn behind the
maples, were privileged to offer Miss Kirkbright a cup of tea
when she went in there, as she would often for an hour's talk
overknittingwork and books that had beenlentand read. Sylvie
might well enough do the same, or go to them for hints and
helps in her window-gardening and little ingenuities of house-
keeping. Mrs. Argenter deluded herself agreeably with the
notion that the relations in each case were identical. But
what with the Sherretts and Miss Kirkbright were mere
kindly incidents of living, apart somewhat from the crowd
of daily demand and absorption, were to Sylvie the essential
resource and relaxation of a living that could find little other.

Sylvie let her mother's reading pass, not knowing how far

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 73

Mrs. Argenter was able actually to believe in it herself, but
clearly and thankfully recognising on • her own part the
reality, — that she had these friends and resources to brighten
what would else be, after all, pretty hard to endure.

The Kno3cwells and the Kents and old lilrs. Sunderline
were hardly neighbours, as she had meant to neighbour with
them. The Knoxwells and the Kents were a little jealous
and suspicious of her overtures, as she had said, and would
not quite let her in. Besides, she did not draw towards
Marion Kent, who came to church with French gilt
bracelets on, and a violently trimmed polonaise, as she did
towards Dot and Ray.

Old Mrs. Sunderline was as nice and cosy as could be ; but
she never went out herself, and her whole family consisted of
herself, her sister. Aunt Lora, the tailoress, and her son, the
young Carpenter, who Sylvie could not help discerning was
much noted and discussed among the womenkind, old and
young, as a village— what shall I say, since I cannot call my
honest, manly Frank Sunderline a village beau ? A village
desirable he was, at any rate. Of course, Sylvie Argenter
could not go very much to his home, to make a voluntary
intimacy. And all these, if she and they had cared mutually
ever so much, would have been under Mrs. Argenter's
proscription as mere common work-and-trade people whom
nobody knew beyond their vocations. There was this
essential difference between the baker's daughters whom the
Sherrett family noticed exceptionally and the blacksmith's and
carpenter's households, the woman who * took in fine wash-
ing/ and her forward, dressy, ambitious girl. Though the
baker's daughters and the good Miss Goodwyns themselves
knew all these in their turn, quite well, and belonged among
them. The social * laying on of hands ' does not hold out,
like the apostolic benediction, all the way down.

I began these last long paragraphs with saying, that
neither Sylvie nor her mother had known how far their
comfort and acquiescence in their new life had depended on
the 'backing up' of the Sherretts. This they found out
when the Sherretts went away that autumn. Amy was
married in October and sailed for England; Rodney was
at Cambridge, and when the country house at Roxeter was

74 THE OTHER GIRLS

closed, Miss Euphrasia took rooms in Boston for the winter,
where her winter work all lay, and Mr, Sherrett, who was a
Representative to Congress, went to Washington for the ,
session. There were no more calls ; no more pleasant
spending of occasional days at the Sherrett Place ; no more
riding round and droppings in of Rodney at the village. All
that seemed suddenly broken up and done with, almost
hopelessly. Sylvie could not see how it was ever to begin
again. Next year Rodney was to graduate, and his father
was to take him abroad. These plans had come out in the
talks over Amy's marriage and her leaving home.

Sylvie was left *to her village ; she could only go into the
Miss Goodwyns and down to the bakery ; and now that her
condescensions were unlinked from those of Miss Kirkbright,
and just dropped into next-door matter of course, Mrs. Ar-
genter fretted. Marion Kent would come calling, too, and
talk about Mrs. Browning, and borrow patterns, and ask
Sylvie 'how she hitched up her Marguerite.'

[In case this story should ever be read after the fashion I
allude to shall have disappeared from the catalogues of But-
terick and Demorest, to be never more mentioned or re-
membered, I will explain that it is a style of upper dress most
eminently im-daisy-like in expression and effect, and remind-
ing of no field simplicities whatsoever, unless possibly of a
hay-load; being so very much pitchforked up into heaps
behind.]

Not that Sylvie dressed herself with a pitchfork ; she had
been growing more sensible than that for a long time, to say
nothing of her quiet mourning ; though for that matter, I
have seen bombazine and crape so voluminously bundled
and massed as to remind one of the slang phrase * piling on
the agony.' But Marion Kent came to Sylvie for the first
idea of her light loops and touches ; then she developed it,
as her sort do, tremendously ; she did grandly by the yard,
what Sylvie Argenter did modestly by the quarter ; she had
a soul beyond mere nips and pinches. But this was small
vexation to be caricatured by Miss Kent. Sylvie's real troubles
came closer and harder.

Sabina Bowen went away.

She had not meant to be married until the spring ; but

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 75

fehe and the cabinet-maker had had their eyes upon a certain
half-house, — neat and pretty, with clean brown paint and
a little enticing gingerbread work about the eaves and porch,
— which was to be vacated at that time ; and it happened
that, through some unforeseen circumstances, the family
occupying it became suddenly desirous to get rid of the re-
mainder of their lease, and move this winter. John came
to Sabina eagerly one evening with the news.

Sabina thought of the long winter evenings, and the bright
double-burner kerosene she had saved up money for ; of a
little round table with a red cloth, and John one side of it
and she the other ; of sitting together in a pew, and going
every Sunday in her bride-bonnet, instead of getting her
every-other-Sunday forenoon and hurrying home to fricassee
Mrs. Argenter's chicken or sweet-bread, and boil her cauli-
flower; and so she gave warning the next morning when
she was emptying Mrs. Argeiiter's bath and picking up the
towels. She steeled herself wisely with choice of time and
person ; it would have been hard to tell Miss Sylvie when
she came down to dust the parlour, or into the kitchen to
make the little dessert for dinner.

And now poor Sylvie fell into and floundered in that slough
of despond, the lower stratum of the Irish kitchen element,
which if one once meddles with, it is almost hopeless to get
out of ; and one very soon finds that to get out of it is the
only hope, forlorn as it may be.

She had one girl who made sour bread for a fortnight, and
then flounced off" on a Monday morning, leaving the clothes
in the tubs, because *her bread was never faulted before, an
faith, she wudn't pit up biscuits of a Sunday night no more
for annybody ! ' The next one disposed of all the dish towels
in four days, behind barrels and in the comers of the kettle
closet, and complained insolently of ill furnishing ; a third
kindled her fire with the clothes-pins ; a fourth wore Mrs.
Argenter's cambric skirts on Sunday, 'for a finish, jist to
make 'em worth while for the washinV and trod out the heels
of three pairs of Sylvie's best stockings, for a like conside-
rate and economical reason. Another declined peremptorily
the use of a flat-iron stand, and burnt out triangular pieces
from the ironing sheet and blanket; and when Sylvie re-

76 THE OTHER GIRLS

monstrated with her about the skirt-board, which she had
newly-covered, finding her using it as a cleaning cloth after
she had heated her /flats' upon the coals, she was met with
a torrent of abuse, and the assurance that she 'might get
somebody else to save her old rags with their apums, an*
iron five white skirts and tin pairs o' undersle^ves a week for
two women, at three dollars an* a half. She had heard
enough about the place or iver she kim intil it, an' the bigger
fool she iver to iv set her fut inside the dooers.'

That was it. It came to that pass, now. They ' heard
about the place before iver they kim intil it.' The Argenter
name was up. There was no getting out of the bog-mire.
Sylvie ran the gauntlet of the village refuse, and had to go-
to Boston to the intelligence offices. By this time she
hadn't a kitchen or a bedroom fit to show a decent servant
into. They came, and looked, and went away ; half-dozens
of them. The stove was burnt out ; there was a hole
through into the oven ; nothing but an entire new one
would do, and a new one would cost forty dollars. Poor
Sylvie toiled and worried ; she went to Mrs. Ingraham and
the Miss Goodwyns, and Sabina Galvin, for advice ; she
made ash-paste and cemented up the breaches, she hired a
woman by the day, put out washing, and bought bread at
the bakehouse. All this time, Mrs. Argenter had her white
skirts and her ruffled underclothing to be done up. * What
could she do ? She hadn't any plain things, and she couldn't
get new, and she must be clean.'

At New Year's, they owed three hundred dollars that they
could not pay, beside the quarter's rent. They had to take
it out of their little invested capital ; they sold ten shares
of railroad stock at a poor time ; it brought them eight
hundred and seventy-five dollars. They bought their new
stove and some other things ; they hired, at last, two girls
for the winter, at three dollars and two and a half, respect-
ively ; this was a saving to what they had been doing, and
they must get through the cold weather somehow. Besides,.
Mrs. Argenter was now seriously out of health. She had
had nothing to do but to fall sick under her troubles, and
she had honestly and effectually done it.

But how should they manage another year, and another ?

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 77

How long would they have any income, if such a piece was
to be taken out of the principal every six months ?

In the spring, Mrs. Argenter declared it was of no use ;
they must give up and go to board. They ought to have
done it in the first place. Plenty of people got along so
with no more than they had. A cheap place in the country
for the summer would save up to pay for rooms in town for
the ^yinter. She couldn't bear another hot season in that
village, — nor a cold one, either. A second winter would be
just madness. What could two women do, who had never
had anything to provide before, with getting in coal, and
wood, and vegetables, and everything, and snow to be sho-
velled, and ashes sifted, and fires to make, and girls going
off every Monday morning }

She had just enough reason, as the case stood, for Sylvie
not to be able to answer a word. But the lease, — for another
year } What should they do with that } Would Mr. Frost
take it off their hands ?

If Sylvie had known who really stood behind Mr, Frost,
and how!

The little poem of village living, — of home simpleness and
frugal prettiness,— of that, the two first lines alone had
rhymed !

They had entered upon thq last quarter of their first year
when they came to this united and definite conclusion. That
nionth of May was harsh and stormy. Nothing could be
done about moving until clearer and finer weather. So the
rent was continued, of course, until the year expired, and in
June they would pack up and go away.

Sylvie had been to the doctor, first, and told him about her
mother; and he had called, in a half-friendly, half-profes-
sional way, to see her. After his call, he had had an honest
talk with Sylvie.

God sometimes shows us a glimpse of a future trouble that
He holds in his hand, to neutralise the trouble we are imme-
diately under; even, it may be, to turn it into a quietness
and content. When Sylvie had heard all that Doctor Sains-
well had to say, she put away her money anxiety from off her
mind, at once and finally. Nothing was any matter now,

78 THE OTHER GIRLS

but that her mother should go where she would, — have what
she wanted.

Then she went to see Mr. Frost.

* He would write to his employer/ he said ; he could not
give an answer of himself.

The answer came in five days. They might relinquish the
house at any moment ; they need pay the rent only for the
time of their occupancy. It would suit the owner quite as
well ; the place would let readily,

Sylvie was happy as she told her mother how nicely it had
come out. She might have been less so, had she seen Mr.
Sherrett's face when he read his agent's letter, and replied ta
it in those three lines without moving from his seat.

' I might have expected it,' he said to himself. * She's a
child after all. But she began so bravely ! And it can't help
being worse by and by. Well, one can't live people's lives
for them.' And he turned back to his other papers, — ^his
notes of yesterday's debate in the House.

Early in June, there came lovely days.

Sylvie was very busy. She had kept her two girls with her
to the end, by dint of raising their wages a dollar a week
each, for the remainder of their stay. She had the whole
house to go over ; even a year's accumulation is formidable,
when one has to turn out and dispose of everything anew.
She began with the attic ; the trunks and the boxes. She
had to give away a great deal that would have been of service
had they continued to live quietly on. Two old proverbs
asserted themselves to her experience now, and kept saying
themselves over to her as she worked : * A rolling stone
gathers no moss ;' * Three removes are as bad as a fire.'

She had come down in her progress as far as the closets of
their own rooms, and the overlooking of their own clothing,
when one afternoon, as, still in her wrapper, she was busy at
the topmost shelves of her mother's wardrobe, with little fear
of any but village calls, and scarcely those, wheels came up
the Turn, and names were suddenly announced.
*Miss Harkbird and Mr. Shoot!'

Sylvie caught in a flash the idea of what the girl ought to
have said. She laughed, she turned red, and the tears very

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 79

nearly sprang to her eyes, with surprise, amusement, embar-
rassment, and flurry.

* What shall I do ? Give me your hand, Katy I And
where on earth is my other dress ? Can't you learn to get
names right ever, Katy ? Miss Kirkbright and Mr. Sherrett.
Say I will be down presently. O, what hair ! '

* She was before the glass now ; she caught up stray locks
and thrust in hairpins here and there-; then she tied a little
violet-edged black ribbon through the toss and rumple, and
somehow it looked all right. Anyway, her eyes were bril-
liant ; the more brilliant for that cloudiness beneath which
they shone.

Her eyes shone and her lips trembled, as she came into
the room and told Miss Euphrasia how glad she was to see
them. For she remembered then why she was so glad ; she
remembered the things she had longed to go to Miss
Euphrasia with, all the hard winter and doubtful spring.

*We are going away, you see,' she told her presently.
* Mother must have a change. It does not suit her here in
any way. We are going to Lebanon for a little while ; then
we shaU find some quiet place, in the mountains, perhaps.
In the winter, we shall have to board in the city. Mother
can't be worried any longer; she must have what she
wants.'

Miss Kirkbright glanced round the pretty parlour, as yet
undisturbed; at all that, with such labour, Sylvie had
arranged into a home a year ago.

' What a care for you, dear ! What will you do with
everything ? '

* We are going to store some of our furniture, and sell
some. Dot Ingraham is to take my plants for me till we
come back to Boston ; then I shall have them in our rooms.
I hope the gas won't kill them.'

Rodney Sherrett said nothing after the first greeting, for
some minutes. He sat and listened, with a sober shadow in
his handsome eyes. All this was so different from anything
he had anticipated.

By and by, in a little pause, he told her that he had come
out to ask her for Class Day.

' I wouldn't just send a card for the spread,' said he, 'Aunt

So THE OTHER GIRLS

Euphrasia wants you to go with her. I'm in the Reward of
Merit list, you see ; Fve earned my good time ; been grind-
ing awfully all winter. I've even got a part for Conmience-
ment. Only a translation ; and it probably won't be called ;
"but wouldn't you like to hear it, if it were ? '

* Oh, I wish I could ! ' said Sylvie, replying in earnest good
faith to the question he asked quizzically for a cover to his
real eagerness in letting her know. ' I wish I could ! But
we shall be gone.'

* Not before Class Day ? '

' Yes ; just about then. I'm so sorry.'

Rod Sherrett looked very much as if he thought he had
"* ground ' for nothing.

Then they talked about Lebanon, and the new Vermont
Springs ; perhaps Mrs. Argenter would go to some of them
In July. Miss Kirkbright told Sylvie of a dear little place
she had found last year, in the edge of the White Mountain
country; 'among the great rolling hills that lead you up
and up,' she said, * through whole countries of wonderful wild
beauty ; the sacred places of simple living that can never be
crowded and profaned. It is a nook to hide away in when
one gets discouraged with the world. It consoles you with
seeing how great and safe the world is, after all ; how the
cities are only blots that men have made upon it ; picnick-
ing here and there, as it were, with their gross works and
pleasures, and making a little rubbish which the Lord could
<:lean all away, if He wanted, with one breath, out of His
grand, pure heights.'

All the while Sylvie and Rodney had their own young dis-
appointed thoughts. They could not say them out; the
invitation had been given and been replied to as it must be ;
this was only a call with Aunt Euphrasia; ever5rthing that
they might have in their minds could not be spoken, even if
they could have seen it quite clearly enough to speak; they
both felt when the half hour was over, as if they had said —
Tiad done — nothing that they ought, or wanted to. And
neither knew it of the other ; that was the worst.

When Rodney at last went out to untie his horse, Miss
Euphrasia turned round to Sylvie with a question.

' Is this all quite safe and easy for you, dear?'

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 8i

*Yes/ returned Sylvie, frankly, understanding her. 'I
liave given up all that worry. There is money enough for a
^ood while if we don't mind using it And it is mother's
money ; and Dr. Sainswell says she cannot have a long life.'

Sylvie spoke the last sentence with a break; but her voice
was clear and calm, — only tender.

'And after that?' Miss Kirkbright asked, looking kindly
into her face.

* After that I shall do what I can; what other girls do, who
haven't money. When the time comes I shall see. All that
comes hard to me — after mother's feebleness — is the changing;
the not staying of anything anywhere. My life seems all
broken and mixed up, Miss Kirkbright Nothing goes right
on as if it belonged.'

'"Lo, it is I; be not afraid,"' repeated Miss Kirkbright
fioftly. ' When things work and change, in spite of us, we
may know it is the Lord working. That is the comfort — ^the
certainty.'

The tenderness that had been in heart and voice sprang
to tears in Sylvie's eyes, at that word.

* How do you think of such things ?' she said, earnestly. * I
shall never forget that now.'

Aunt Euphrasia could not help telling Rodney as they
^ove away towards the city, how brave and good the child
was. She could not help it, although, wise woman that she
was, she refrained carefully, in most ways, from 'putting
things in his head.'

' I knew it before,' was Rodney's answer.

Aunt Euphrasia concluded, at that, in her own mind, that
we may be as old and as wise as we please, but in some
things the young people are before us ; they need very little
of our ' putting in heads.'

'Aunt Effie,' said Rodney, presently, 'do you think I have
been a very great good-for-nothing ?'

'No, indeed. Why?'

* Well, J certainly haven't been good for much ; and I'm
not sure whether I could be. I don't know exactly what to
think of myself. I haven't had anything to do with horses
this winter ; I sent Red Squirrel off into the country. What
is the reason. Auntie, that if a fellow takes to horses, they all

82 • THE OTHER GIRLS

think he is going straight to the bad ? What is there so
abominable about them V

' Nothing,' said Miss Kirkbright. ' On the contrary, every-
thing grand and splendid— in type — ^you know. Horses are
powers ; men are made to handle powers, and to use them ;
it is the very manliest instinct of a man by which he loves
thenu Only, he is terribly mistaken if he stops there —
playing with the signs. He might as well ride a stick, or
drive a chair with worsted reins, as the little ones do^ all his
life.'

Rodney's face lit straight up; but for a whole mile he
made no answer. Then he said, as people do after a
silence, —

* How quiet we are, all at once ! But you have a way of
finishing up things, Aunt Euphrasia. You said all I wanted
in about fifty words, just now. I begin to see. It may be
just because I might do something, that I haven't. Aunt
Euphrasia, I have done being a boy, and playing with
reins. I'm going to be a man, and do some real driving.
Do you know, I think I'd better not go to Europe with
my father?'

* I don't know that,' returned Miss Kirkbright ' It might
be ; but it is a thing to consider seriously, before you give it
up. You ought to be quite sure what you stay for.'

* I won't stay for any nonsense. I mean to talk with him
to-night.'

' Talk with yourself, first, Rod ; find yourself out, and then
talk it all out honestly with him.'

Which advice — the first clause of it — Rodney proceeded
instantly to follow ; he did not say another word all the
way over the Mill Dam and up Beacon Hill, and Aunt
Euphrasia let him blessedly alone ; one of the few women,
as she was, capable of doing that great and passive thing.

When he had left her at her door, and driven his horse
to the livery stable, he went round to his father's rooms and
took tea with him.

The meal over, he pushed back his chair, saying, * I want
a talk with you, father. Can I have it now ? I must be
back at Cambridge by ten.'

Mr. Sherrett looked in his son's face. There was nothing

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR 83.

there of uncomfortableness, — of conscious bracing up to a ^
difficult matter. He repressed his first instinctive enquiry
of ' No scrape, I hope, Rod ? ' The question was asked and
answered between their eyes.

' Certainly, my boy,' he said, rising. * Step in there ; the
man will be up presently to take away these things.'

The door stood open, to an inner apartment/ a little
study, beyond which were sleeping and bath-rooms.

Rodney stepped upon the threshold, leaning against
the frame, while Mr. Sherrett went to the mantel, found a
match and a cigar, cut the latter carefully in two, and lit one
half.

*The thing is, father,' said Rodney, not waiting for a
formal beginning after they should be closeted and seated, —
' I've been thinking that I'd better not go abroad, if you
don't mind. I'm rather waking up to the idea of earning my
own way first — before I take it. If s time I was doing
something. If I use up a year or more in travelling, I shall
be going on to twenty-two, you see ; and I ought to have
got ahead a little by that time.'

Mr. Sherrett turned round, surprised. This was a new
phase. He wondered how deep it went, and what had
occasioned it.

*Do you mean you wish to study a profession, after
all?'

* No. I don't think I've much of a " head-piece " — as Nurse
Pond used to say. At least, in the learned direction. I've
just about enough to do for a gentleman — a man, I hope.
But I should like to take hold of something and make it go.
I'll tell you why, father. I want to see whaf s in me in the
first place ; and then, I might want something, sometime, that
I should have no right to if I couldn't take care of myself —
and more.'

' Come in, Rodney, and shut the door.'

After that, of course, we cannot listen.

They two sat together for almost two hours. In that time,
Mr. Sherrett was first discomposed ; then set right upon one
or two little points that had puzzled and disappointed him
and to which his son could furnish the key; tlien thoroughly
roused and anxious at this first dealing with his boy as a

84 THE OTHER GIRLS

man, with all a man's hopes and wishes quickening him to a
serious purpose; at last, touched sympathetically, as a good
father must be, with the very desire of his child, and the
fears and uncertainties that may environ it What he sug-
gested, what he proposed and promised, what was partly
planned to be afterwards concluded in detail, did not tran-
spire through that heavy closed door; neither we, nor the
white-jacketed serving-man, can be at this moment the
wiser. It will appear hereafter. When they came out
together at last, Mr. Sherrett was saying, —

* Two years, remember. Not a word of it, decisively, till
then, — ^for both your sakes.*

* Let what will happen, father ? You don't remember when
you were young.'

* Don't I?' said his father, with emphasis, and a kindly
smile. * If anything happens, come to me. Meanwhile —
you may talk, if you like, to Aunt Euphrasia. I'll trust her.'

And so the Lord set this angel of his to watch over the
thread of our story.

We may leave it here for a while.

CHAPTER VIL

BEL AND BARTHOLOMEW.

' Kroo ! kroo ! I've cramp in my legs.
Sitting so long atop of my eggs !
Never a minute for rest to snatch ;
I wonder when they are going to hatch !

* Cluck ! cluck ! listen ! tseep !
Down in the nest there's a stir and a peep.
Everything comes to its luck some day ;
I've got chickens ! What will folks say ? '

Bel Bree made that rhyme. It came into her head sud-
denly one morning, sitting in her little bedroom window that
looked right over the grass yard into the open barn-door,
where the hens stalked in and out; and one, with three
chickens, was at that minute airing herself and her family

BEL AND BARTHOLOMEW 85

that had just come out of their shells into the world, and
walked about already as if the great big world was only there,
just as they had of course expected it to be. The hen was
the most astonished. She was just old enough to begin to
be able to be astonished. Her whole mind expressed itself
in that proud cluck, and pert, excited carriage. She had
done a wonderful thing, and she didn't know how she had
done it Bel * read it Uke coarse print,' — as her step- mother
was wont to say of her own perspicacities, — and put it into
Jingle, as she had a trick of doing with things.

Bel Bree lived in New Hampshire ; fifteen miles from a
railway ; in the curious region where the old times and the
new touch each other and mix up ; where the women use
towels, and table-cloths, and bed-spreads of their mothers^
own hand-weaving, and hem their new ones with sewing-
machines brought by travelling agents to their doors ; where
the men mow and rake their fields with modem inventions,
but only get their newspapers once a week ; where the 'help'
are neighbours' girls, who wear overskirts and high hats,
and sit at the table with the family ; where there are rag
carpets and * paintea chamber-sets ;' where they feed calves
and young turkeys, and string apples to dry in the summer,
and make wonderful patchwork quilts, and wax flowers, and
worsted work, perhaps, in the long winters ; where they go
to church and to sewing societies from miles about, over
tremendous hills and pitches, with happy-go-lucky waggons
and harnesses that never come to grief ; where they have
few schools and intermitted teaching, yet turn out, somehow,
young men who work their way into professions, and girls
who take the world by instinct, and understand a great deal
perfectly well that is beyond their practical reach ; where
the old Puritan stiffness keeps them straight, but gets lea-
vened in some marvellous way with the broader and more
generous thought of the time, and wears a geniality that it
is half unconscious of ; the region where, if you are lucky
enough to get into it to know it, you find yourself, as Miss
Euphrasia said, encouraged and put in heart again about
the world. Things are so genuine ; when they make a step
forward, they are really there.

But Bel Bree was not very happy in her home, though she

86 THE OTHER GIRLS

sat at the window and made rhymes in half merry fashion ;
though she loved the hills, and the lights, and the shadows,
the sweet-blossoming springs and the jewelled autumns, and
the great rains, that set all the wild little waterfalls prancing
and calling to each other among the ravines.

Bel had two lives ; one that she lived in these things, and
one within the literal and prosaic limit of the farm-house,
where, her father, as farmers must, had married a smart
second wife to ' look after matters.'

Not that Mrs. Bree ever looked after anything : nothing
ever got ahead of her ; she ^whewed round ;' when she was
* whewing,' she neither wanted Bel to hinder nor help ; the
child was left to herself ; to her idleness and her dreams ;
then she neglected something that she might and ought to
have done, and then there was reproach and hard speech ;
partly deserved, but running over into that wherein she
should not have been blamed, — the precinct of her step-
mother's own busy and self-arrogated functions. She was
taunted and censured for incapacity in that to which she
was not admitted ; ^ her mother made ten cheeses a week,
and flung them in her face,' she said. On the other hand,
Mrs. Bree said, * Bel hadn't got a mite of S7iap to her.** One
might say that, perhaps, of an electric battery, if the wrong
poles were opposed. Mrs. Bree had not found out where
the ' snap ' lay in Bel's character. She never would find
out.

Bel longed, as human creatures who are discontent always
do, to get away. The world was big : there must be better
things somewhere.

There was a pathos of weariness, and an inspiration of
hope, in her little rhyme about the hen.

Bel was named for her Aunt Belinda. Miss Belinda
Bree came up for a week, sometimes, in the summer, to the
farm. All the rest of the year she worked hard in the city.
She put a good face upon it in her talk among her old neigh-
bours. She spoke of the grand streets, the parades. Duke's
balls, — ^for which she made dresses, — and jubilees, of which
she heard afar off, — as if she were part and parcel of all Boston
enterprise and magnificence. It was a great thing, truly, to
live in the Hub. Honestly, she had not got over it since she

BEL AND BARTHOLOMEW 87

came there, a raw country girl, and began her apprenticeship

to its wonders and to her own trade. She could not turn a

water faucet, nor light her gas, nor count the strokes of the

-electric fire alarm, without feeling the grandeur of having

Cochituate turned on to wash her hands, —of making her one

little spark of the grand illumination under which the Three

Hills shone every night, — of dwelling within ear-shot and

protection of the quietly imposing system of wires and bells

•that worked by lightning against a fierce element of daily

danger. She was proud of policemen ; she was thrilled at

the sound of steam-engines thundering along the pavements ;

she felt as if she had a hand in it. When they fired guns

upon the Common, she could only listen and look out of

windows ; the little boys ran and shouted for her in the

streets ; that is what the little boys are for. Somebody must

do the running and the shouting to relieve the instincts of

older and busier people, who must pretend as if they didn't

care.
All kept Miss Belinda Bree from utterly wearing out her

dull work in the great warerooms, or now and then at a days'

seamstressing in families. It really keeps a great many

people from wearing out.

Miss Bree's work was dull. The days of her early * mantua-
making' were over. Twenty years had made things very
different in Boston. The 'nice families' had been more
quiet then ; the quietest of them now cannot manage things
as they did in those days ; for the same reason that you can-
not buy old-fashioned 'wearing' goods ; they are not in the
market. * Sell and wear out ; wear out and sell ;' that is the
principle of to-day. You must do as the world does ; there is
no other path cut through. If you travel, you must keep on
night and day, or wait twenty-four hours and start in the
night again.

Nobody— or scarcely anybody — ^has a dressmaker now, in
the old, cosy way, of the old, cosy sort, staying a week, looking
over the wardrobes of the whole family, advising, cutting,
altering, remaking, getting into ever so much household
interest and history in the daily chat, and listening over daily
work : sitting at the same table ; linking herself in with
^ings, spring and fall, as the leaves do with their goings and

88 • THE OTHER GIRLS

comings ; or like the equinoxes, that in March and September
shut about us with friendly curtains of rain for days, in which,
so much can be done in the big up-stairs room with a cheerful
fire, that is devoted to the rites and mysteries of scissors and
needle. We were always glad^ I remember, when our dress-
making week fell in with the equinoctial.

But now, all poor Miss Breeds * best places ' had slipped
away from her, and her life had changed. People go to great
outfitting stores, buy their goods, have themselves measured^
and leave the whole thing to result a week afterwards in a big
box sent home with ever3rthing fitted and machined and
finished, with the last inventions and accmnulations of fiills^
tucks, and reduplications ; and at the bottom of the box a bill
tucked and reduplicated in the same modem proportions.

Miss Bree had now to go out, like any other machine girl,
to the warerooms ; except when she took home particular
hand-work of button holes and trinmiings, or occasionally
engaged herself for two or three days to some family mother
who could not pay the big bills, and who ran her own machine^
cut her own basques and gores, and hired help for basting and
finishing. She had almost done with even this ; most people
liked young help ; brisker with their needles, sewing without
glasses, nicer and fresher looking to have about. Poor
* Aunt Blin ' overheard one man ask his wife in her dressing-
room before dinner, ' Why, if she must have a stitching-
woman in the house, she couldn't find a more comfortable
one to look at ; somebody a little bright and cheerful to bring
to the table, instead of that old callariper ? '

Miss Bree behaved like a saint ; it was not the lady's fault ;
she resisted the temptation to a sudden headache and
declining her dinner, for fear of hurting the feelings of her
employer, who had always been kind to her ; she would not
let her suspect or be afraid that the speech had come to her
ears ; she smoothed her thin old hair, took off her glasses,,
wiped her eyes a little, washed her hands, and went down
when she was called ; iDut after that day she * left off going
out to work for families.'

The warehouses did not pay her very well ; neither there
was she able to compete with the smart young seamstresses ;
she only got a dollar and a quarter a day, and had to lodge

BEL AND BARTHOLOMEW 89.

and feed herself ; yet she kept on ; it was her lot and living ;
she looked out at her third-story window upon the roofa and
spires^ listened to the fire-alarms, heard the chimes of a
Sunday, saw carriages roll by and well-dressed people moving
to and fro, felt the thrill of the daily bustle, and was, after
all, a part of this great, beautiful Boston ! Strange though
it seem. Miss Belinda Bree was content

Content enough to tell charming stories of it, up in the
country, to her niece Bd, when she was questioned by her.

Of her room all to herself, so warm in winter, with a red
carpet (given her by the very Mrs. ' Callariper ' who could not
help a misgiving, sifter all, that Miss Bree's vocation had
been ended with that wretched word), and a coal stove, and
a big, splendid brindled gray cat — Bartholomew — flying
before it ; of her snug little housekeeping, with kindlings in
the closet drawer, and milk-jug out on the stone window-sill y
of the music-mistress who had the room below, and wha
came up sometimes and sat an hour with her, and took her
cat when she came away, leaving in return, in her own
absences, her great English ivy with Miss Bree. Of the
landlady who lived in the basement, and asked them all
down, now and then, to play a game of cassino or double
cribbage, and eat a Welsh rabbit; of things outside that
younger people did, — ^the girls at the warerooms and their
friends. Of Peck's cheap concerts, and the Public Library
books to read on holidays and Sundays ; of ten-cent trips
down the harbour, to see the surf on Nantasket Beach ; of
the brilliant streets and shops ; of the Public Garden, the
flowers and the pond, the boats and the bridge ; of the great
bronze Washington reared up on his horse against the
evening sky ; of the deep, quiet old avenues of the Common ;
of the balloons and the fireworks on the * Fourth of Julies.*^

I do not think she did it to entice her ; I do not think it
occurred to her that she was putting anything into Bel's
head ; but when Bel all at once declared that she meant to
go to Boston herself and seek her fortune, — do machine-
work or something, — Aunt Blin felt a sudden thankful delight,
and got a glimpse of a possible cheerfulness coming to her-
self that she had never dreamed of. If it was pleasant to
tell over these scraps of her small, husbanded enjoyments ta

90 THE OTHER GIRLS

Bel, what would it be to have her there, to share and make
and enlarge them ? To bring young girls home sometimes
for a chat, or even a cup of tea ; to fetch books from the
library, and read them aloud of a winter evening, while she
stitched on by the gas-light with her glasses on her little homely
old nose? The little old nose radiated the concentrated
delight of the whole diminutive, withered face ;'the intense
gleam of the small, pale blue eyes that bent themselves
together to a short focus above it, and the eagerness of the
thin, shrunken lips that pursed themselves upward with
an expression that was keener than a smile. Bel laughed,
and said she was 'all puckered up into one little admiration
point ! '

After that, it was of no use to be wise and to make
objections.

* 111 take you right in. with me, and look after you, if you
do ! ' said Miss Bree. 'And two together, we can housekeep
real comfortable ! '

It was as if a new wave of youth, from the far-retreated
tide, had swept back upon the beach sands of her life, to
spend its sparkle and its music upon the sad, dry level.
Every little pebble of circumstance took new colour under
its touch. Something belonging to her was still young,
strong, hopeful. Bel would be a brightness in the whole old
place. The middle-aged music-mistress would like her, —
perhaps even give her some fragmentary instruction in the
clippings of her time. Mrs. Pinmiiny, the landlady, — old Mr.
Sparrow, the watch-maker, who went up and down stairs to
and from his nest under the eaves, — the milliner in the
second-floor-back, — why, she would make friends with them
all, like the sunshine ! There would be singing in the house!
The middle-aged music-mistress did not sing — only played.
And this would be her doing, — her bringing ; it would be the
third-floor-front's glory. The pert girls at the wareroom
would not snub the old maid any more, and shove her into
the meanest comer. She had got a piece of girlhood of her
own again. Let them just see Bel Bree — that was all I

Yet she did set before Bel, conscientiously, the differ-
ence between the free country home and the close, bricked-
up city.

BEL AND BARTHOLOMEW 91

'There isn't any out-doors there, you know — round the
houses ; home out-doors ; you have to be dressed up and go
somewhere, when you go out. The streets are splendid, and
there's lots to look at ; but they're only made to get through^
you know, after all.'

They were sitting, while she spoke, on a flat stone out
under the old elm-trees between the 'fore-yard' and the
bam. Up above was great blue depth into which you could
look through the delicate stems and flickering leaves of
young far tips of branches. One little white cloud was
shining down upon them as it floated in the sun. Away off
swelled billowy tops of hills, one behind another, maJcing
you feel how big the world was. That was what Bel had
been saying.

' You feel so as long as you stay here/ replied Miss Blin,
*as if there was room and chance for everything "over the
hills and far away." But in the city it all crowds up together ;
it gets just as close as it can, and everybody is after the same
<:hances. 'Tain't all Fourth-of-July ; you mustn't think it.
Milk's ten cents a quart, ^xoAjest as blue ! Don't you s'pose
you're better off up here, after all ? Do you think Mrs. Bree
could get along without you, now ? '

Bel replied most irrelevantly. She sat watching the fowls
scratching around the barn-door.

' How different a rooster scratches from a hen ! ' said she.
*' He just gives one kick, — out smart, — and picks up what
he's after ; she makes ever so many little scrabbles, and half
the time concludes it ain't there! — What was it you were
saying ? About mother ? O, she don't want me ! The
trouble is. Aunt Blin, we two donH want each other, and
never did.' She picked up a straw and bent it back and
forth, absently, into little bits, until it broke. Her lips
curled tremulously, and her bright eyes were sad.

Miss Blin knew it perfectly well without being told ; but
she wouldn't have pretended that she did, for all the world.

' O, tut ! ' said she. * You get along well enough* You
like one another full as well as could be expected, only you
ain't constituted similar, that's all. She's great for turning
off, and going ahead, and she ain't got much patience. Such
folks never has. You can't be smart and easy going too.

92 THE OTHER GIRLS

'Tain't possible. She's " right-up-an'-a-coinin/"and she ex-
pects everybody else to be. But you like her Bel ; you know
you do. You ain't going away for that. I won't have it that
you are.'

* I like her — ^yes ; ' said Bel, slowly. ' I know she's smart
I mean to like her. I do it on purpose. But I don't love
her, with a catUt help it^ you see. I feel as if I ought to ; I
want to have my heart go out to her ; but it keeps coming
back again. I could be happy with youj Aunt Blin, in your
up-stairs room, with the blue milk out in the window-silL
There'd be room enough for us ; but this whole farm isn't
comfortable for Ma and me ! '

After that, Miss Blin only said that she would speak to
Kellup ; meaning her brother, Caleb Bree.

Caleb Bree was just the sort of man that by divine com-
pensation generally marries, or gets married by a woman
that is * right-up-an'-a-comin.' He *had no objections,' to
this plan of Bel's, I mean; perhaps his favourite phrase
would have expressed his strongest feeling in the crisis just
referred to, also ; it was a normal state of mind with him ;
he had gone through the world, thus far, on the principle of
not * having objections.' He had none now, *if Ma'am
hadn't, and Blin saw best.' He let his child go out from his
house down into the great, unknown, struggling, hustling^
devouring city, without much thought or enquiry. It settled
that point in his family. * Bel had gone down to Boston to
be a dress-maker, long of her Aunt Blindy,' was what he
had to say to his neighbours. It sounded natural and satis-
factory. Households break up after the children are grown,
of course ; they all settle to something ; that is all it comes
to— the child-life out of which if they had died and gone
away, there would have been wailing and heart-breaking ; the
loving and tending and watching through cunning ways and
helpless prettiness and small knowledge-getting : they turn
into men and women, and they go out into the towns, or they
get married, even — and nobody thinks, then, that the little
children are dead ! But they are : they are dead, out of the
household, and they never come back to it any more.

Caleb Bree let Bel go, never once thinking that after this
she never could come back the same.

BEL AND BARTHOLOMEW 93

Mrs. Bree had her own two children — and there might be
more — that would claim all that could be done for them.
She would miss Bel's telling them stories, and washing their
faces, and carrying them off into the bam or the orchard,
and leaving the house quiet of a Sunday or a busy baking-
day. It had been * all Bel was good for ; ' and it had been
more than Mrs. Bree had appreciated at the time. Bel cried
when she kissed them and bade them good-by ; but she was
gone ; she and her round leather trunk and her little bird
in its cage that she could not leave behind, though Aunt
Blin -did say that ' she wouldn't altogether answer for it with
Bartholomew.'

Bel herself, — ^the other little bird, — ^who had never tried her
wings, or been shut up in strange places with fierce, prowling
creatures, — she coidd answer for her, she thought !

It is worth telling, — ^the advent of Bel and her bird in the
up-stairs room in Leicester Place, and what came of it with
Bartholomew. Miss Blin believed very much in her cat with
the apostolic name, though she had never tried his principles
with a caged bird. She had tutored him to refrain from meat
and milk unless they were set down for him in nis especial
comer upon the hearth. He took his airings on the window-
ledge where the sun slanted in of a morning, beside the very
brown paper parcel in which was wrapped the mutton chop
for dinner; he never touched the cheese upon the table,
though he knew the word ' cheese' as well as if he could spell
it, and would stand up tall on his hind paws to receive his
morsel when he was told, even in a whisper, and without a
movement, that he might come and have some. He pre-
ferred his milk condensed in this way ; he got very little of it
in the fluid form, and did not think very highly of it when he
did. He knew what was good, Aunt Blin said.

He understood conversation; especially moral lectures and
admonitions ; Miss Bree had talked to him precisely as if he
had a soul, for five years. He knew when she was coming
back at one o'clock to dinner, or at nine in the evening, by
the ringing of the bells. After she had told him so, he would
be sitting at the door, watching for its opening, from the
instant of their first sound until she came up-stairs.

When Aunt Blin thought over all this and told it to Bel, on

96 THE OTHER GIRTS

tholomew's sides, and went on with unabated faith, — un-
liurried cahnness.

' We set everything by that little bird, Bartholomew ! We
wouldn't have it touched for all the world I Don't — never —
50 — near it ! Do you hear ? '

Bartholomew heard. Miss Bree could not see his tail,
fairly lashing now, behind her back, nor the fierce eyes,
flowing like green fire. She stroked his head, and went on
preaching.

* The little bird sings, Bartholomew 1 You can hear it,
mornings while you eat your breakfast. And you shall have
CHEESE for breakfast as long as you're good and don^t —
iouch — the bird/'

' O, Aimt Blin ! He will ! He means to ! Don't show
it to him any more ! Let me hang it way up high, where
lit can't/'

* Don't you be afraid. He understands now, that we're
precious of it. Don't you, Bartholomew ? I want him to get
used to it.'

And Aunt Blin actually set the cat down, and turned round
to take up her shawl again.

Bartholomew was quiet enough for a minute ; he must
have his cat-pleasure of crouching and creeping ; he must
wait till nobody looked. He knew very well what he was
about But the tail trembled still ; the green eyes were still
wild and eager.

' The kindlings are in the left-hand closet, you know,' said
Aunt Blin, with a big pin in her mouth, and settling her
shoulders mto her shawl. ' Youll want to get the fire going
as quick as you can.'

Poor Bel turned away with a fearful misgiving ; not for
that very minute, exactly ; she hardly supposed Bartholomew
would go straight from the sermon to sin; but for the •
resistance of evil enticements hereafter, under Miss Bree's
trustful system, — though he walked off now like a deacon after
a benediction, — she trembled in her poor little heart, and
was sorely afraid she could not ever come to love Aunt Blin's
great gray pet as she supposed she ought

Aunt Blin had not fairly reached the passage-way, Bel had
Just emerged from the closet with her hands full of kindlings,

BEL AND BARTHOLOMEW 97

and pushed the door to behind her with her foot, when —
crash ! bang ! — ^what had happened ?

A Boston earthquake ? The room was full of a great noise
and scramble. It seemed ever so long before Bel could
comprehend and turn her face towards the centre of it ; a
second of time has infinitesimal divisions, all of which one
feels and measures in such a crisis. Then she and Aunt
Blin came together at a sharp angle of incidence in the middle
of the room, the kindlings scattered about the carpet ; and
there was the corollary to the exhortation. The overturned
cage, — the dragged-off table-cloth, — the clumsy Bartholomew,
big and gray, bewildered, yet tenacious, clinging to the wires
and sprawling all over them on one side with his fearful bulk,
and the tiny green and golden canary flattened out against
the other side within, absolutely plane and prone with the
me^e smite of terror.

' You awful wild beast ! I knew you didn't mind ! * shrieked
Bel, snatching at the little cage from which Bartholomew
dropped discomfited, and chirping to Cheepsie with a
vehemence meant to be reassuring, but failing of its tender
intent through frantic indignation. It is impossible to scold
and chirp at once, however much one may want to do it

' You dreadful tiger cat ! ' she repeated. It almost seemed
as if her love for Aunt BUn let loose more desperately her
denunciations. There is something in human nature which
turns most passionately — if it does turn — upon one's very
own.

* I can't bear you ! I never shall ! You're a horrid,
monstrous, abominable, great, gray — ^wolf! I knew you
were !'

Miss Bree fairly gasped.

When she got breath, she said slowly, mournfully, ' O,
Bartholomew ! I thought I could have trusted you !
Was you a murderer in your heart all the time ? Go
away ! I'^fe — no — con — fidence in you ! No co^on — ^fidence
in you, Bartholomew Bree ! '

It is impossible to write or print the words so as to sug-
gest their grieved abandonment of faith,. their depth of
loving condenmation.

If Bartholomew had been a human being ! But he was

98 THE OTHER GIRLS

not ; he was only a great gray cat He retreated, shame-
faced enough for the moment, under the table. He knew he
was scolded at ; he was found out and disappointed ; but
there was no heart-shame in him \ he would do exactly the
same again. As to being trusted or not^ what did he care
about that ?

* I don't believe you do,' said Aunt Blin, thinking it out to
this same point, as she watched his face of greed, mortified,
but persistent ; not a bit changed to any real humility.
Why do they say ^dogged, except for a noble holding fast?
It is a cat which is selfishly, stolidly obstinate.

' I don't know as I shall really like you any more,' said
Aunt Blin, with a terrible mildness. ' To think you would
have ate that little bird !'

Aunt Blin's ideal Bartholomew was no more. She might
give the creature cheese, but she could not give him
* ^^«fidence.'

Bel and the bird illustrated something finer, higher,
sweeter, to her now. Before, there had only been Bar-
tholomew ; he had had to stand for everything ; there was
a good deal, to be sure, in that.

But Bel was so astonished at the sudden change, — ^it was
so fimny in its meek manifestation, — that she forgot her
wrath, and laughed outright.

* Why, Auntie I ' she cried. ' Your beautifulBartholomew,
who understood, and let alone ! *

Aunt Blin shook her head.

' I don't know. I thought so. But — I've no — ^^^/-fidence
in him ! You'd better hang the cage up high. And I'll go
out for the muffins.'

Bel heard her saying it over again, as she went down the
stairs.

'No. I've no— ^^«-fidence in him ! '

CHAPTER VIII.

TO HELP : SOMEWHERE.

There was an administratrix's notice tacked up on the great
elm-tree by the Bank door, in Upper Dorbury Village.

All indebted to the estate of Joseph Ingraham were called
upon to make payment — and aU having demands against the
same to present accounts, — to Abigail S. Ingraham.

The bakery was shut up. The shop and house-blinds were
closed upon the street. The bright little garden at the back
was gay with summer colour; roses, geraniums, balsams,
candytuft ; crimson and purple, and white and scarlet flashed
up everywhere. But Mrs. Ingraham had on a plain muslin
cap, instead of a ribboned one such as she used to wear ; and
Dot was in a black calico dress; they sat in the kitchen
window together ripping up some breadths of faded cloth that
they were going to send to the dye-house. Ray was in the
front room, looking over papers. Mrs. Ingraham's name
appeared in the notices, but Ray really did the work, all
except the signing of the necessary documents.

Everything was very different here, the moment Joseph
Ingraham's breath was gone from his body. Everything that
had stood in his name stood now in the name of an * estate.'
Large or small, an estate has always to be settled. There
had been»a man already applying to buy out of the remainder
of the bakery lease, — house and alL He was ready to take it
for eight years, including the one it had to run in tie present
occupancy; he would pay them a considerable bonus for
relinquishing this and the goodwilL

Ray had stood at the helm and brought the vessel to port ;
that was different from undertaking another voyage. She
did not see that she had any right to hazard her mother's and
sister's little means, and incur further risks which she had
not actual capital to meet, for the ambition, or even possible

H 9

loo THE OTHER GIRLS

gain, of carrying on a business. She understood it per-
fectly ; she Could have done it ; she could, perhaps, have
worked out some of her own new ideas ; if she and Dot had
been brothers, instead of sisters, it would very likely have
been what they would have 'don& There was enough to pay
all debts and leave them upwards of a thousand dollars
apiece. But Ray sat down and thought it all over. She
remembered that they were women, and she saw how that
made all the difference.

' Suppose cither of us should wish to niarry ? Dot might,
at any rate.'

. That was the way she said it to herself. She really thought
of Dot especially and first ; fot it would be her doing if her
sister were bound and hampered in any way ; and even
though Dot were willing, could she see clear to decide upon
an undertaking that would involve the seven best years of
the child's life, in which ' who knew what might happen ? '

She did not look straight in the face her own possibilities,
yet she said simply in her own mind, * A woman ought to
leave room for that. It might be cheating some one else, as
well as herself, if she ^dn't.' And 6he saw very well that a
woman could not marry and assume family ties, with a seven
years* lease of a bakehouse and a seven years' business on
her hands. 'Why— he might be a — anything,' was the odd
little wording which she mentally exclaimied at this point of
her considerations. And if he were anything, — anything of a
man^ and doing anything in the Wotld as a man does, — what
would they do with two businesses? The whole vexed
question solved itself to her mind in this home-fashion. * It
isn't natural ; there never will be much of it in the world,' she
said. ' Yotmg women, with their real womanhood in them,
won't ; and by the time they've lived on and found out, the
chances will be over. To do business as a man does, you
must choose as a man does,— for your whole life, at the
beginning of it.'

Ray Ingraham, with all her capacity and courage, at this
turning-point where choice was given her, and duty no longer
showed her one inevitable way, chose deliberatdy to be a
wdman. She took up a woman's lot^ with all its uncertainty
and disadvantage; the lot of working for others.

■ TO ;HELP : SOMEWHERE loi

'I can find something simply to ^o and to be paid for;
that will be safe and faithful;, that will leave room,'

She said something like that ^o Frank Sunderline, when he
sat talking with her over some building accounts one evening.

He had come in as a friend, and had helped them in many
little ways ; beside having special occasion in this matter, as
representing his own employer who held a, small dema»d
against the estate. , . ,

^ I am too youngf/ she told, him, *Dot is too young. I
should feel as if I must have her with me if I kept on, and
we should need to keep all the little mpney tPgether. . How
can I tell what Dot — how can I tell what, either of us'— ^she
changed her word with brave honesty, *. might haye a wish
for, before seven years were over? ^f I were forty, years oidh.
and could do it, I would; 1 would take gir)3 foiT joumeymeiiiiy
! — ^girls who wanted, work and pay;, then ,they would be
Wought up to a very good busiii€;?s fqr woi^aen, if they came
to want business; and they would be free, while they «tt#r#.
girls, for happier tilings that might Jiappen/

'That is good Woman's Rights doctrine;, it doesn't leave '
out the best right of alL'

'A woman can't shape out her life all beforehand^ as a mam
can; she can't be siire^ you see; and npbptdy else qoukl feel .
sure about her. I suppose that i^ what has kept women lOUt .
of the real business world^ — th^ ordering and heading of
things. But they can /help. I'm willing tp. help, somehow;
and I guess the world will let me.'

There was somethini^ that went straight to Franlq Sundpr^
line's deepest, unspoken apprehension of most beautiful thiQg$>
in Ray Ingraham's aspect as she said, these wprds, The i3aaji ,
in him suddenly perceived, though yaguely, something of what .
God meant when He made the woman., Power ?hpj;ie through .
the beauty in her face; but power ready t;Ojlay itself aside;
ready to help, not lead. Made th^ most tender, because mipst
perfect outcome and' blossom of humanitjy,,ivon[ian, accepts ,
her conditions, as God Himself accepts his pwn, when He
hides Himself away under limitations, that the $ecr^t force ;
may lie ready to the wprk man thinks he does upon the earth, ;
and with it In' duint, waiting nature, his own very Self
bides subject; yes, and in the things of the Spirit, H* gives

I02 THE OTHER GIRLS

His Son in the likeness of a servant. He lays help upon him;
He lays help for man upon the woman. He took her nearest
to Himself when He made her to be a help meet in all things
to his Adam-child. To * help ' is to do the work of the world.

Ray*s face shone with the splendour of self-forgetting,
when she said that she would •' help, somewhere.'

What made him suddenly think of iiis own work ? What
made him say, with a flash in his eyes, —

*rve got a job of my own, Ray, at last. Did you
know k ? '

' I'm very glad,' said Ray, earnestly. * What is it ?'

* A house at Pomantic. Rather a shoddy kind of house,
— ^flashy, I mean, and ridiculously grand ; but it's work ;
and somebody has to build all sorts, you know. When 1
build my house — ^well, never mind ! Holder has put this
contract right into my hands to carry out. He'll step over,
and look round, once in a while, but I'm to have the care
of it straight through — stock, work, and all ; and I'm to
have half the profits. Isn't that high of Holder ? He has
his hands firil, you know, at River Point. There's no end of
building there, this year, — a whole street going up, — with
Mansard roofs, of course. Everything is going into this
house that can go into a house ; and to see that it gets in
right will be — practice, anyhow.*

Sunderline chattered on like a boy ; almost like a girl ;
telling Ray what he was so glad of And Ray listened, her
cheek glowing ; she was so ^ad to be told.

He had not said a word of this to Marion Kent that
afternoon, when she had stopped him at her window, going by.
He had stood there a few minutes, leaning against the white
fence, and looking across the little door-yard, to answer the
questions she asked him; about the Ingrahams, the questions
were ; but he did not offer to come nearer.

Marion was sewing on a rich silk dress, sea-green in
colour ; it glistened as she shifted it with busy fingers under
the light ; it contrasted exquisitely with her fair, splendid
hair, and the cream and rose of her full blonde complexion.
It was a ' platform dress,' she told him, laughing ; she was
going with the Leverings on a reading and musical tour ;
they had got a little company together, and would give en-

TO HELP: SOMEWHERE 103

tertainments in the large country towns ; perhaps go to
some of the fashionable springs, or up among the mountain
places ; folks liked their amusements to come after them,
from the cities ; they were sure of audiences where people
had nothing to do.

Marion was in high spirits. She felt as if she had the
world before her. She would ^travel, at any rate ; whether
there were anything else left of it or not, she would have had
that ; that, and the sea-green dress. While she talked, her
mother was ironing in the back room. The dress was owed
for. She could not pay for it till she began to get her own
pay.

What was the use of telling a girl like that — all flushed
with beauty and vanity, and gay expectation — about his
having a house to build ? What would it seem to her, —
his busy life all spring and summer among the chips and
shavings, hammering, planing, fitting, chiseling, buying
screws, and nails, and patent fastenings, tiles and pipes ;
contriving and hurrying, working out with painstaking in
laborious detail an agreement, that a new rich man might get
into his new rich house by October 1 When she had only
to make herself lovely and step out among the lights before
a gay assembly, to be applauded and bouqueted; to be
stared at and followed ; to live in a dream, ajid call it her
profession ? When Frank Sunderline knew there was
nothing real in it at all ; nothing that would stcand, or remain,
only her youth, and prettiness, and forwardness, and the
facility of people away from home and in by-places to be
amused with second-rate amusement, as they manage to
feed on second-rate fare ?

It was no use to say this to her, either ; to warn her, as he
had done before. She must wear out her illusions, as she
would wear out her glistening silk dress. He must leave
her now, with the shimmer of them all about her imagination,
bewildering it, as the lovely, lustrous heap upon her lap
threw a bewilderment about her own very face and figure,
and made it for the moment beautiful with all enticing, out-
ward complement and suggestion.

He told Ray Ingraham ; and he said what a pity it was :
what a mistake.'

IQ4 THE OTHER GIRLS

Ray did not answer for a minute ; she had a little struggle
with herself; a little fight with that in her heart which made
itself manifest to her in a single quick leap of its pulses.

Was she glad ? Glad that Marion Kent was living out,
perversely, this poor side of her — making a mistake ? Losing,
perhaps, so much ?

' Marion has something better in her than that,' she made
herself say, when she replied. * Perhaps it will come out
again, some day.'

^ I think she has. Perhaps it wilL You have always been
good and generous to her, Ray.'

What did he say that for ? Why did he make it impossible
for her to let it go so ?

* Don't ! ' she exclaimed. ' I am not generous to her this
minute ! I couldn't help, when you said it, being satisfied —
that you should see. I don't know whether it is mean or
true in me, that I always do want people to see the truth.'

She covered it up with that last sentence. The first, left
by itself, might have shown him more. It was certainly so ;
that there was a little severity in' Ray Ingraham, growing
out of her clear perception and her very honesty. When
she could see a thing, it seemed as if everybody ought to see
it ; if they did not, as if she ought to show them, that
they might fairly understand. A half imderstMiding made
her restless, even though the other half were less kind and
comfortable.

* You show the truth of yoiurself, too,' said Frank. ' And
that is grand, at any rate.'

* You need not praise me,' said Ray, almost coldly. * It is
impossible to be quite true, I think. The nearer you try to
come to it, the more you can't' — and then she stopped.

' How many changes there have been among us ! ' she
began again, suddenly, at quite a different point. 'All
through the village there have been things happening, in
this last year. Nobody is at all as they were a year ago.
And another year' —

*Will tell another year's story,' said Frank Sunderline.
* Don't you like to think of that sometimes ? That the story
isn't done, ever ? That there is always more to tell, on and
on 1 And that means more to do. We are all niaking a

TO HELP: SOMEWHERE 105

piece of it. If we stayed right still, you see, — ^why, the Lord
might as well shut up the book !'

He was full of life, this young man, and full of the delight
of living. There was something in his calling that made him
rejoice in a confident strength. lie was bom to handle tools ;
hammer and chisel were as parts of him. He builded ; he
believed in building ; in something coming of every stroke.
Real work disposes and qualifies a man to believe in a real
destiny — a real Gk)d. A carpenter can see that nails are
never driven for nothing. It is the sham work, perhaps, of
our day, that shakes faith in purpose and unity ; a scram-
bling, shifty living of men's own, that makes to their sight a
chance huddle and phantasm of creation.

Mrs. Ingraham came down into the room where they
were, at this moment, and Dot presently followed. They
began to talk of their plans. They were going, now, to live
with the grandmother in Boston, in Pilgrim Street.

It was a comfortable, plain old house, in a little strip of
neighbourhood long since left of fashion, and not yet de-
manded of business ; so Mrs. Rhynde could afford to occupy
it. She had used, for many years, to let out a part of her
rooms — these that the Ingrahams would take — in a tene-
ment, as people used to say, making no ambitious distinc-
tions ; now it might be spoken of as * a fiat,' or ' apartments.'
Everything is * apartments ' that is more than a foothold.

The rooms were large, but low. At the back, they were
sunny and airy ; they looked through, overlapping a court-
way, into Providence Square. It was a real old Boston
homestead, of which so few remain. There were comer
beams and wainscots, some tiled chimney-pieces, even. It
made you think of the pre-Revolutionary days; of tea-
drinkings, before the tea was thrown overboard. The step
into the front passage was a step down from the street

Ray and Dot told these things ; beguiled into reminis-
cences of pleasant childish visiting days ; Ray, of long
domestication in stifi later ye^s. It would be a going
home, after all.

Leicester Place was only a stone's throw from Pilgrim
Street. From old Mr. Sparrow's attic window, you could
look across to the Pilgrim Street roofs, and see women

io6 THE OTHER GIRLS

hanging out clothes there upon the flat tops of one or two of
the houses. But what of that, in a great city ? Will the
Ingrahams ever come across Aunt Blin and bright little Bel
Bree?

In the book that binds up this story, there is but the turn
of a leaf between them. A great many of us may be as
near as that to each other in the telling of the world's story,
who never get the leaf turned over, or between whom the
chapters are divided, with never a connecting word.

The Ingrahams moved into Boston in the early summer.
It was July when Bel came down from the hill-country with
Aunt Blin.

CHAPTER IX.

INHERITANCE.

Do you remember somebody else who lives in Boston?
Have you heard of the old house in Greenley Street, and
Uncle Titus Oldways, and Desire Ledwith, who came home
with him after her mother and sisters went off to Europe,
and something had touched her young life that had left for a
while an ache after it ? Do you know Rachel Froke, and
the little gray parlour, and the ferns, and the ivies, and the
canary, — and the old, dusty library, with its tall, crowded
shelves, and the square table in the midst, where Uncle
Oldways sat? All is there still, except Uncle Oldways.
The very year that had been so busy elsewhere, with its
rushing minutes that clashed out events and changes as
moving atoms clash out heat— that had brought to pass all
that it has taken more than a hundred pages for me to tell,
— ^that had drawn towards one centre and focus, whither, as
into a great whirling maelstrom of life, so many human
affairs and interests are continually drifting, the far-apart
persons that were to be the persons of one little history, —
this same year had lifted Uncle Titus up. Out of his old
age, out of his old house, — out from among his books, where

INHERITANCE 107

he thought and questioned and studied, into the youth and
vigour to which, underneath the years, he had been growing ;
into the knowledges that lie behind and beyond all books
and Scriptures; into the house not made with hands, the
Innermost, the Divine. Not away ; I do not believe that.
Lifted up, in the life of the spirit, is only taken within.

Outside, — just a little outside, for she loved him, and her
life had grown into his and into his home, — Desire remained,
in this home that he had given her.

People talked about her, eagerly, curiously. They said
she was a great heiress. Her mother and Mrs. Megilp had
written letters to her overflowing with a mixture of sentiment
and congratulation, condolence and deUght They wanted
her to come abroad at once, now, and join them. What was
there, any longer, to prevent ?

Desire wrote back to them that she did not think they
understood. There was no break, she said; there was to
be no beginning again. She had come into Uncle Titus's
living with him ; he had let her do that, and he had made it
so that she could stay. She was not going to leave him now.
She would as soon have robbed him of his money and run
away, while the handling of his money had been his own.
It was but mere handling that made the difference. Himself
was not dependent on his breath. And it was himself that
she was joined with. * How can people turn their backs on
people so ? ' She broke off with that, in her old, odd, abrupt,
blindly significant fashion.

No : they could not understand. * Desire was just queerer
than ever,* they said. ' It was such a pity, at her age. What
would she be if she Uved to be as old as Uncle Titus him-
self ?' Mrs. Megilp sighed, long-sufferingly.

Mrs. Froke lived on in the gray parlour ; Hazel Ripwink-*
ley ran in and out ; she hardly knew which was most home
now, Greenley or Aspen Street She and Desire were toge-
ther in everything ; and the bakery and laundry and indus-
trial asylimi that Luclarion Grapp's missionary work was
taking shape in ; in Chapel classes and teachers' meetings ;
in a Wednesday evening Read-and-Talk, as they called it,
that they had gathered some dozen girls and young women
into, for which the dear old library was open weekly; in

lo8 THE OTHER GIRLS

walks to and fro about the city ' on errands ; ' in long plans
and consultations^ now, since so much power had been laid
on their young heads and hands.

Uncle Oldways had made ' the strangest will that ever was/
if that were not said almost daily of men's last disposals.
Out of the two sisters' families, the Ripwinkleys and the
Ledwiths, he had chosen these two girls, — children almost, —
whom he declared his * next of kin, in a sense that the Lord
and they would know;' and to them he left, in not quite
equal shares, the bulk of his large property ; the income of
each portion to be severally theirs, — Desire's without re-
striction, Hazel's under her mother's guardianship, until each
should come to the age of twenty-five years. If either of the
two should die before that age, her share should devolve upon
the other; if neither should survive it, — then followed a
division among persons and charities, such, as he said, with
his best knowledge, and 'the Lord's help, he felt himself at
the moment of devising moved to direct. At twenty-five he
counselled each heir to make, promptly^ her own legal testa-
.iient, searching, meanwhile, by the light given her in the
doing of her duty, for whom or whatsoever should be shown
her to be truly, and of the will of God — not man, her own
* next of kin.'

' For needful human form,' he said, in conclusion, ^ I name
Frances Ripwinkley executrix of this my will ; but the Lord
Himself shall be executor, above and through all ; may He
give unto you a right judgndent in all things, and keep us
evermore in his holy comfort !'

Some people even laughed at such a document as this,
made as if the Almighty really had to do with things, and
were surer than trustees and cunning law-conditions.

*Two girls!' they said, * who will marry — the Lord knows
whom — and do, the Lord knows what, with it all ! '

That was exactly what Titus Oldways believed. He be-
lieved the Lord did know. He had shown him part; enough
to go by to the end of his beat ; the rest was his. ^ Every-
thing escheats to the King, at last.'

And so Desire Ledwith and Hazel Ripwinkley sat in the
old house together, and made their pure, young, generous
plans ; so they went in and out, and did their work, blessedly;

INHERITANCE 109

and Uncle Titus's arm-chair stood there, where it always
had, at the library table ; and the Book of the Gospels, with
its silver cross, lay in its silken cover where it always lay ;
and nothing had gone but the bent old form from which the
strength had risen and the real presence loosened itself; and
Uncle Titus's grand, beautiful life passed over to them con-
tinually; for hands on earth, he had their hands; for feet,
their ieet. There was no break, as Desire had said ; it was
the wonderful 'fellowship of the mystery' which God meant,
in the manifold wisdom that they know in heavenly places,
when He ordained the passing over. We call it death j we
make it death ; a separation. We leave off there. We gather
up the tools that loved ones drop, and use them to carve out,
selfishly, our own pleasures ; we let their life go, as if it were
no matter to keep it up upon the earth. We turn our backs,
and go our ways, and leave saints' hands outstretched in-
visibly in vain.

It was ever so bright and cheerful in this house into which
death — that was such a birth — had come* These children
were brimming over with happy thankfulness that Uncle
Titus had loved and trusted them so. They never
solemnised their looks or lengthened their accent when they
spoke of him ; he had come a great deal nearer to them in
departing than he had ever known how to come, or they to
approach him, before. Something young in his nature
that had been hidden by gray hairs and slowness of years,
sprang to join itself to their youth on which he had laid his
bequest of the Lord's work. They ran lightly up and down
where he had walked with measured gravity ; they chatted
and laughed, for they knew he was gladder than either ;
they sat in Desire's large, bright chamber at their work, or
they went down to find out things in books in the library ;
and here', though nothing fell with any chill upon their
spirits, they handled reverently the volumes he had loved, —
they used tenderly the appliances that had been his daily
convenience. With an unspoken consent, they never sat in
the seat that had been his. The young heiresses of his
place and trust made each a place for herself at opposite
ends of the large writing-table, and left his chair before his
desk as if he himself had just left it, and might at any

no THE OTHER GIRLS

moment come in again and sit again there with them. They
always kept a^ase of flowers beside the desk, at the left
hand.

One day, that summer, they were up-stairs, sewing.
Rachel Froke was busy below ; they could hear some light
movement now and then, in the stillness ; or her voice came
up through the open windows as she spoke to Frendely, the
dear old serving woman, helping her dust and sort over
glasses and jars for the yearly preserving.

I cannot tell you what an atmosphere of things and re-
lations that had grown and sweetened and mellowed, there
was about this old home ; what a lovely repose of stability,
in the midst of the domestic ferments that are all about us
in the changing households of these changing days.
Frendely, who had served her maiden apprenticeship in
a country family of England, said it was* like the real old
places there.

* Hazel,' said Desire, suddenly, — (she did her thinking
deeply and slowly, but she had never got over her old
suddenness in speech ; it was like the way a good old seam-
stress I knew used to advise with the needle, — " Take your
stitch deliberate, but pull out your thread as quick as you
can,") — * Hazel ! I think I may go to Europe after all.'

* Desire ! '

'And more than than that. Hazel, you are to go with
me.'

* Desire Ledwith ! '

* Yes, those are my names. I haven't any more ; so your
surprise can't expend itself any further in that direction.
Now, listen. It's all to be done in our Wednesday evening
Read-and-Talks. See?'

* Very well ; begin on interjections ; theyTl last some
time. What I mean is, an idea I got from Mrs. Hautayne,
when I saw her last spring at the Schermans'. She says
she always travelled so much on paper ; and that paper
travelling is very much like paper weddings ; you can get
all sorts of splendid things into it. There are books, and
maps, and gazetteers, and pictures, and stereoscopes.
Friends' letters and art galleries. I took it right up into

INHERITANCE 1 1 1

my mind, silently, for my class, sometime. And pretty
soon, I think we'll go.'

* O, Desire, how nice ! '

' That's it ! One new word, or two, every time, and re-
peat. ^'Now say the five? "as Fay's Geography used to
tell us.'

* O Desire Ledwith, how nice ! '

* Good girl. Now, don't you think that Mrs. Geoffrey and
Miss Kirkbright would lend us pictures and things ?'

* How little we seem to have seen of the Geoffreys lately !
I mean, all this spring, even before they went down to
Beverly,' said Hazel, flying off from the subject in hand at
the mention of their names. ' I wonder why it is fixed so,
Des', that the best people — those you want to get nearest to
— are so busy being the best that you don't get much
chance ? '

' Perhaps the chance is laid up,' said Desire, thoughtfully.^
' I think a good many things are. But to keep on, Hazel,
about my plan. You know those two beautiful girls who
came in Sunday before last, and joined Miss Kirkbright's
class ? Not beautiful^ I don't mean exactly, — ^though one of
them was that, too ; but real' —

* Splendid ! ' filled out Hazel. ' Real ready-made sort of
girls. As if they'd had chapel all their lives, somehow.
Not like first-Sunday girls at all.'

* One of them was a chapel girl. Miss Kirkbright told
me. She grew up there till she was sixteen years old ; then
she went to live in the country. Now I must have those
two in, you see. I don't know but Mr. Vireo would say it
was making a feast for friends and neighbours, if I pick out
the ready-made. But this sort of thing — ^you must have
some reliance, you know ; then there's something for the rest
to come to, and grow to. I think I shall begin about it
before vacation, while they're all together and alive to
things. It takes so long to warm up to the same point after
the break. We might have one meeting, just to organise,
and make it a settled thing. O, how good it will be when
Mr. Vireo comes home ! '

If I had not so many things to tell before my story can be
at all complete, I should like nothing better than to linger

112 THE OTHER GIRLS

here in Desire Ledwith's room, where there was so really ' a
beautiful east window, and the morning had come in/ I
should just like to stay in the sunshine of it, and show what
the stir of it was, and what it had come to with these two ;
what a brightness, day by day, they lived in. I should be
glad to tell their piece of the story minutely; but I should
not be able to get at it to tell. We may touch such lives,
and feel the lovely pleasantness ; but to enter in, and have
the whole— that may only be done in one way; by going and
doing likewise.

This talk of theirs gives one link ; it shows you how easily
and naturally they came to have to do with the Ingrahams ;
how they belonged in one sphere and drew to one centre ;
how simply things happen, after all, when they have any
business, to happen.

Somebody speaks of the ascent of a lofty church spire, as
giving such a wonderful glimpse of the unity of a great city ;
showing its converging movements, its net-work of connec-
tion, — its human currents swayed and turned by intelligible
drifts of purpose ; all which, when one is down among them,
seem but whirls of a confusing and distracting medley ; a
heaping and rushing together of many things and much con-
flicting action ; where the wonder is that it stays together at
all, or that one part plays and fits in with any other to har-
mony of service. If we could' climb high enough, and see
deep enough, to read a spiritual panorama in like manner, we
should look into the mystery of the intent that builds the
worlds and works with * birth and death and infinite motion '
to evolve the wonders of all human and angelic history.
We should only marvel, then, at what we, with our little bit
of wayward free-will, hinder; not at what God gently and
mightily forecasts and brings to pass.

To find another link, we must go away and look in
elsewhere.

CHAPTER X.

FILLMER AND BYLLES..

It was a hot morning in the heart of summer.

The girls, coming in to their work, after breakfasts of sour
rolls, cheap, raw, bitter coffee and blue milk, with a greasy
relish, perhaps, of sausage, bacon, fried potatoes, or whatever
else was economical and untouchable, — with the world itself
frying in the fervid blaze of a sun rampant for fifteen hours
a day, — saw in the windows early peaches, cool salads, and
fresh berries; yellow and red bananas in mellow heavy
clusters; morning bouquets lying daintily on wet mosses;
pale, beryl-green, transparent hothouse grapes hanging their
globes of sweet refrigerant juices before toil-parched, un-
satisfied, feverish lips.

Let us hope that it did them good ; it is all we can^o now
about it.

Up in the workroom of a great dressmaking establishment
were heaps of delicate cambric, Victoria lawn, piquds, mus-
lins,, piles of frillings, Hamburg edgings, insertions, bands.
Machines were tripping and buzzing ; cutters were clipping
at the tables ; the forewoman was moving about, directing
here, hurrying there, reproving now and then for some care-
less tension, rough fastening, or clumsy seam. Out of it all
were resulting lovely white suits ; delicate, cloud-like, flounced
robes of bewitching tints ; grateful morning wrappers, — '
perfect toilets of all kinds for girls at watering-places and In
elegant summer homes.

Orders kept coming down from the mountains, up from the
sea-beaches, in from the country seats, where gay, friendly
circles were amusing away the time, and making tiiemselves
beautiful before each others' eyes.

For it was dreadfully hot again this year.

Bel Bree did not care. It all amused her. She had not

114 THE OTHER GIRLS

got worn down yet, and she did not live in a cheap, working
girls' boarding house. She had had radishes that morning
with her bread and butter, and a little of last year's fruit out
of a tin can for supper the night before. That was the way
Miss Bree managed about peaches. I believe that was the
way she thought the petition in the Litany was answered, —
*TPreserve to our use the kindly fruits of the earth, that in due
time we may enjoy them ; ' after the luckier people have had
their fill, and begun on the new, and the cans are cheap.
There are ways of managing things, even with very little
money. If you pay for the managing^ you have to do without
the things. Bel and her aunt, together, with their united
earnings, and their nice cosy ways, were very far from being
uncomfortable. Bel said she liked the pinch, — what there
was of it. She liked * a little bit brought home in a paper
^nd made much of.'

Bel had been just a fortnight in the city. She had gone
right to work with her aunt at Fillmer & Bylles ; she was
bright and quick, knew how to run a * Wilcox & Gibbs,'
and had ' some perception,' the forewoman said, grimly ; with
a delicate implication that some others had not. Miss Ton-
ker's praises always pared off on one side what they put on
upon another.

It had taken Bel a fortnight to feel her ground, and to get
■exactly the ' lay of the land.' Then she went to work, un-
hesitatingly, to set some small things right.

This morning she had hurried herself and her aunt,
come early, and put Miss Bree down, resolutely, against all
her disclaimers, in a corner of the very best window in the
room. To do this, she moved Matilda Meane's sewing-
machine a little.

When Matilda Meane came in, she looked as though she
thought the world was moved. She did not exactly dare to
order Miss Bree lip ; but she elbowed about, she pushed her
machine this way and that ; she behaved like a hen hustled
off her nest, and not quite making up her mind whether she
would go back to it or not. Miss Bree's nose grew appre-
hensive; it drew itself up with a little, visible, trembling gasp,
— ^her small eyes glanced timidly from under the drawn,
puckered lids ; it was evidently all she could do to hold her

FILLMER AND BYLLES 115

ground. But Bel had put her there, and loyalty to Bel kept
her passive. It is so much harder for some poor meek things
€ver to take anything, than it is for ever to go without Only
for love and gratefulness can they ever be made to assume
their common human rights.

Presently it had to come out.

Bel was singing away, as she gathered her work together
in an opposite quarter of the room, keeping a glance out at
her right eye corner, expectantly.

* Who moved this machine ? ' asked Matilda Meane,
stopping short in her endeavours to make it take up the
middle of the window without absolutely rolling it over Aunt
Blin's toes.

' I did, a little,' answered Bel promptly. ' There was plenty
of room for two ; and if there hadn't been, Aunt Blin must
have a good light, and have it over her left shoulder, at that.
5he is the oldest person in the room, Miss Meane ! '

* She was spoken to yesterday about her buttonholes,' she
added, in a lower tone, to Eliza Mokey, as she settled herself
in her own seat next that young lady. 'And it was all
because she could hardly see.'

* Buttonholes or not,' answered Eliza, who preferred to be
cisdled ' Elise,' * Fm glad somebod} has taken Mat Meane
down at last. She needed it. I wish you could take her in
hand everywhere. If you boarded at our house ' —

* I shouldn't,' interrupted Bel, decisively. * Not under any
•circumstances, from what you tell of it.'

* That's all very well to say now ; you're in clover, com-
paratively. " Chaters " and real tea, — and a three-ply carpet!'

Miss Mokey had gone home with Bel and Aunt Blin, one
■evening lately, when there had been work to finish and they
had made a * bee ' of it.

' See if you could help yourself if you hadn't Aunt Blin.'

* Why couldn't I help myself as well as she ? She had a
nice place all alone, before I came.'

* She must have half starved herself to keep it, then.
Stands to reason. Dollar and a quarter a day, and five
dollars a week for your room. Where's your muffins, and
your Oolong ? Or else, where's your shoes ? — Where's that
Hamburg edging?'

ij6 the other girls

* We don't have any Hamburg edging/ said Bel, laughing.

* Nonsense. You Imow what I mean, O, here it is, under
all that piqud ! For mercy's sake, won't Miss Tonker blow ?
— Naw I get my nine dollars a week, and out of it I pay six
for my share of that miserable sky-parlour, and my ends of
the crusts and the cheese-parings. No place to myself for a
minute. Why, I feel mixed up sometimes to that degree
that I'd almost like to die, and begin again, to find out
who I am !'

' Well, I wouldn't live so. And Aunt Blin wouldn't I'm
afraid she didnH have other things quite so— corresponding
— when she was by herself ; but she had the home comfort.
And, truly, now, I shouldn't wonder if there was real nourish-
ment in just looking round, — at a red carpet and things, —
when you've got 'em all just to your own mind. You can piece
out with — peace ! '

For two or three minutes, there was nothing heard after
that in Bel and Elise's comer, but the regular busy click
of the machines, as the tucks ran evenly through. Miss
Tonker was hovering in the neighbourhood. But presently,
as she moved off, and Elise had a spool to change, Bel
began again.

'Why don't you get up something different? Why
couldn't a dozen, or twenty, take a flat, or a whole house,,
and have a housekeeper, and live nice ? I believe I could
contrive.'

Bel was a bom contriver. She was a bom reformer, as all
poets are ; only she did not know yet that she was either.
That had been the real trouble up in New Hampshire. She
had her ideals, and she could not carry them out ; so she sat
and dreamed of what she would do if she could. If she
might in any way have moulded her home to her own more
delicate instincts, it may be that her step-mother need not
have had to complain that ' there was no spimk or snap to
her about anything.' It was not in her to 'whew round'
among tubs and whey, — to go slap-dash into soapmaking, or
the coarse Monday's washing, when all nicer cares were
evaded or forbidden ; when chairs were shoved back against
each other into comers, table-cloths left crooked, and
dragging and crumby, drawing the flies, — ^mantel ornaments

FILLMER AND BYLLES 117

-of uncouth odds and ends pushed all awry and one side
.<iuring a dusting, and left so, — carpets rough and untidy at
the comers ; no touch of prettiness or pleasantness, nothing
but clear, necessary work anywhere. She would have made
home home \ then she would have worked for it.

Aunt Blin was like her. She would rather sit behind her
blinds in her neat, quiet room of a Sunday, too tired to go to
church, but with a kind of sacred rest about her, and a
possible hushed thought of a presence in a place that God
had let her make that He might abide with her in it, — than
to live as these girls did, — even to have been young like
them; to hive put on fine, gay things, bought with the
small surplus of her weekly earnings after the wretched
board was paid, and parade the streets, or sit in a pew, with
a Sunday-consciousness of gloves and new bonnet upon her.

* O, faugh ! ' said Elise Mokey, impatiently, to BePs * I
could contrive.' 'I should like to see you, with girls like
Matilda Meane. You've got to get your dozen or twenty,
first, and make them agree.'

Miss Mokey had very likely never heard of Mrs. Glass,
or of the * catching your hare,' which is the impracticable
hitch at the start of most delicious things that might other-
wise be done.

* I think this world is a kind of single-threaded machine
after all. There's always something either too tight or too
loose the minute you double,' she said, changing her tension-
screw as she spoke. ' No ; we've just got to make it up with
cracker-frolics, the best way we can ; and that takes one
more of somebody's nine dollars every time. There's some
fun in it after all ; especially to see Matilda Meane come to
the table. I do believe that girl would sell her soul it she
could have a Parker House dinner every day. When it's
a littie worse, or a little better, than usual ; when the milk
^ves out, or we have a yesterday's lobster for tea, — I wish

you could just see her. She's so mad, or she's so eager. She
will have claw-meat ; it is claw-meat with her, sure enough ;
and if anybody else gets it first, or the dish goes round the
other way and is all picked over, — she looks / Why, she looks
as if she desired the prayers of the congregation, and nobody
•would pray ! '

Ii8 THE OTHER GIRLS

* What are you two laughing at ? ' broke in Kate Sencer-
box, leaning over from her table beyond. * Bel Bree, where
are your crimps ? '

In the ardour of her work, or talk, or both, BePs hair, as
usual, had got pushed recklessly aside.

* O, I only have a little smile in my hair early in the
morning,' replies quick, cheery Bel. 'It never crimps de-
cidedly, and it all gets straightened out prim enough as the
day's work comes on. It's like the grass of the field, and a
good many other things ; in the morning it is fresh and
springeth up ; in the evening it giveth up, and is down flat.'

' I guess youll find it so,' said Elise Mokey, splenetically.
*Was that what you were laughing at?' asked Kate.

* Seems to me you choose rather aggravating subjects.'

* Aggravations are as good as anything to laugh at, if yoti
only know how,' Bel Bree said.

* They're always handy, at any rate,' said Elise.

*I thought "aggravate" meant making worse than it is/
said quiet little Mary Pinfall.

* Just it, Molly!' answered Bel Spree, quick as a flash.
*■ Take a plague, make it out seven times as bad as it is, so
that it's perfectly ridiculous and impossible, and then laugh
at it. Next time you put your finger on it, as the Irishman
said of the flea, it isn't there.'

'That's hommerpathy,' said Miss Proddle. 'Hommer-
pathy cures by aggravating.'

Miss Proddle was tiresome ; she always said things that
had been said before, or that needed no saying. Miss
Proddle was another of those old girls who, like Miss , Bree
among the young ones, have outlived and lost their Christian
names, with their vivacity. Never mind ; it is the Christian
name, and the Lord knows them by it, as He did Martha
and Mary.

* Reductio ad absurdum,^ put in Grace Toppings, who had
Deen at a High School, and studied geometry.

* Grace Toppings ! ' called out Kate Sencerbox, shortly,

* you've stitched that flounce together with a twist in it ! '

Miss Tonker heard, and came round again.
' Gyurls ! ' she said, with elegantly severe authority, ' I wilt
not have this talking over the work. Miss Toppings, this

FILLMER AND BYLLES 119

whole skirt is an unmitigated muddle. Head-tucks half an
inch too near the bottom ! No room for your flounce. If
you can't keep to your measures, you'd better not undertake
piece-work. Take that last welt out, and put it in over the top.
And make no more blunders, if you please, unless you want
to be put to plain yard-stitching.'

* Eight inches and a half is some room for a flounce, I
guess, if it ain't nine inches,' muttered the mathematical
Grace, as she began the slow ripping of the lock-stitched
tucking, that would take half an hour out of the value of
her day.

* That's a comfortf, ain't it ? ' whispered mischievous, sharp,
good-natured Kate. * Look here ; I'll help, if you won't talk
any more Latin, or Hottentot.'

It was of no use to tell those girls not to talk over their
work. The more work they had in them, the more talk ;
it was a test, like a steam-gauge. Only the poor, pale, worn-
out ones, like Emma HoUen, who coughed and breathed
short, and could not spend strength even in listening, amidst
the conflicting whirr of the feeds and wheels, — and the old,
sobered-down, slow ones, like Miss Bree and Miss Proddle,
button-holing and gather-sewing for dear life, with their
spectacles over their noses, and great bald places showing
on the tops of their bent heads, — kept time with silent
thoughts to the beat of their treadles and the clip of their
needles against the thimble-ends.

Elise Mokey stretched up her back slowly, and drew her
shoulders painfully out of their steady cramp.

* There ! I went round without stopping ! I put a sign
on it, and I've got my wish ! I'd rather sweep a room,
though, than do it again.'

' You might sweep a room, instead,' said Emma Hollen,
in her low, faint tone, moved to speak by some echo in that
inward rhythm of her thinking. * I partly wish / had, before
now.'

* O, you goose ! Be a kitchen-woUoper ! '

' Maybe I sha'n't be anything very long. I should like to
feel as if I could stir round.'

' I wouldn care if anybody could see what it came to or

I20 THE OTHER GIRLS

what there was left of it at the year's end/ said Elise
Mokey.

* Pd sweep a room fast enough if it was my own/ sa}d
Kate Sencerbox. 'But you won't calch me sweeping up
other folks' dust.'

* I wonder what other folks' dust really is, when you've
sifted it, and how you'd pick out your own/ said Bel.

* I'd have my ovm place, at any rate/ responded Kate, * and
the dust that got into it would go for mine, I suppose.'

Bel Bree tucked away. Tucked away thoughts also, as she
worked. Not one of those girls who had been talking, had
anything like a home. What was there for them at the year's
end, after the wearing round and round of daily toil, but the
diminishing dream of a happier living that might never come
true } The fading away out of their health and prettiness into
* old things like Miss Proddle and Aunt Blin,' — to take their
tnm then, in being si^ubbed and shoved aside ? Bel liked
her own life here, so far ; it was pleasanter than that which
she had left; but she began to see how hundreds of other
girls were going on in it \wthout reward or hope; unfitting
themselves, many of them utterly, by the very mode of their
careless, rootless existence, — all of them, more or less, by the
narrow specialty of their monotonous drudgery, — ^for the
bright, capable, adaptive many-sidedness of a happy woman's
living in the love and use and beauty of home.

Some of her thoughts prompted the fashion in which she
recurred to the subject during the hour's dinner-time.

They were grouped together — the same half dozen — ^in a
little ante-room, with a very dusty window looking down into
an alley-way, or across it rather, since unless they really
leaned out from their fifth story, the line of vision could not
strike the base of the opposite buildings ; a room used for the
manifold purposes of clothes-hanging, hand-washing, brush
and broom stowing, and luncheon-eating.

* Girls! What would you do most for in this world ? What
would you have for your choice, if you could get it ? *

'Stories to read, and theatre tickets every night/ said
Grace Toppings.

' Something decent to eat, as often as I was hungry/ said

FILLMER AND BYLLES 121

Matilda Meane^ speaking thick through a big mouthful ot

cream-cake.

* To be married to Lord Mortimer, and go and live in an
Abbey,' said Mary Pinfall, who sat on a box with a cracker
in one hand, and the third volume of her old novel in the
other.

The girls shouted.

*'That means you'd like a real good husband, — a Tom, or
a Dick, or a Harry,' said Kate Sencerbox. ' Lord Mortimers
don't grow in this country. We must take the kind that do.
And so we will, every one of us, when we can get 'em. Only
I hope mine will keep a store of his own, and have a house
up in Chester Park! '

^ If I can ever see the time that I can have dresses made
for me, instead of working my head and feet off making them
for other people, I don't care where^my house is ! ' said Elise
Mokey.

' Or your husband either, I suppose,' said Kate, sharply.

* Wouldn't I just like to walk in here some day, and order
•old Tonker round ?' said Elise, disregarding. * I only hope
she'll hold out till I can ! Won't I have a black silk suit as
thick as a board, with fifteen yards in the kilting ? And a
•violet-gray, with a yard of train and Yak-fiounces ! '

' That isn't my sort,' said Kate Sencerbox, emphatically.
^Ifs played out, for me. ' People talk about our being in the
way of temptation, always seeing what we can't have. It
isn't that would ever tempt me ; I'm sick of it. I know all
the breadth-seams, and the gores, and the gathers, and the
travelling round and round with the hems and trimmings and
bindings and flouncings. If I could get out of it, and never
hear of it again, and be in a place, of my own, with my time
to myself I Wouldn't I like to get up in the morning and
choose what I would do ?— when it wasn't Fast Day, nor
Fourth of July, nor Washington's Birthday, nor any day in
particular ? I think, on the whole, I'd choose not to get up."
A chance to be lazy ; that's my vote, after all, Bel Bree ! '

' O, dear ! ' cried Bel, despairingly. * Why don't some of
you wish for nice, cute little things ? '

' Tell us what,' said Kate. ' I think we have wished for
^aU sorts, amongst us.'

122 THE OTHER GIRLS

* O, a real little home — to take care of/ said BeL ' Not
fine, nor fussy ; but real sweet and pleasant. Sunny windows
and flowers, and a pretty carpet, and white curtains, and one
of those chromos of little round, yellow chickens. A best
china tea-set, and a real trig littlfe kitchen ; pies to make for
Sundays and Thanksgivings ; just enough work to do in th^
mornings, and time in the afternoons to sit and sew, and—
somebody to read to you out loud in the evenings ! I think
I'd do anything — that wasn't wicked — to come to live just
like that ! '

*The)re isn't anybody that does live so nowadays,' said
Kate. * There's nothing between horrid little stivey places,,
and regular scrub and squall and slop all the week round,
and silk and show and ordering other folks about. You've
got to be top or bottom ; and if it's all the same to you, I
mean to be top if I can ; even if —

Kate was a great deal better than her pretences, after all.
She did not finish the bad sentence.

* 111 tell you what I do wonder at,' said Bel Bree. ' So
many great, beautiful homes in this city, and so few people
to live in them. All the rest crowded up, and crowded out^
When I go round through Hero Street, and Pilgrim Street,
and past all the little crammy courts and places, out into the
big avenues where all the houses stand back from each other
with such a grand politeness, I wantto say. Move up a little^
can't you? There's such small room for people in there,
behind ! '

* Say it, why don't you ? I'll tell you who'd listen. Wash-
ington, sitting on his big bronze horse, pawing in the air at
Commonwealth Avenue ! '

* Well — Washington would listen, if he wasn't bronze. And
its grand for everybody to look at him there. I shouldn't
really want the houses to move up, I suppose. It's good to-
have grandness somewhere, or else nobody would have any
place to stretch in. But there must be some sort of moving
up that could be, to make things evener, if we only knew ! '

Poor little Bel Bree, just dropped down out of New Hamp-
shire ! What a problem the great city was already to her 1

Miss Tonker put her sub-aristocratic face in at the door.
It is a curious kind of reflected majesty that these important

CRISTOFERO 123

functionaries get^ who take at first hand the magnificent
orders, and sustain temporary relations of silk-and-velvet
intimacy with Spreadsplendid Park.

The hour was up. Mary Pinfall slid her romance into the
pocket of her waterproof; Matilda Meane swallowed her
last mouthful of the four cream-cakes which she had valor-
ously demolished without assistance, and hastily washed her
hands at the faucet ; Kate and Elise and Grace brushed by
her with a sniff of generous contempt.

In two minutes, the wheels and feeds were buzzing and
clicking again. What did they say, and emphasize, and
repeat, in the ears that bent over them ? Mechanical time-
beats say something, always. They force in and in upon the
soul its own pulses of thought, or memory, or purpose ; of
imagination or desire. They weld and consolidate our
moods, our elements. Twenty miles of, musing to the
rhythmic throbbings of a railroad train, who does not know
how it can shape and deepen and confirm whatever one has
started with in mind or heart ?

CHAPTER XI.

CRISTOFERO.

A September morning on the deck of a steamer^ bound into
New York, two days from her port

A fair wind; waves gleaming as they tossed landward,
with the white crests and the grand swell that told of some
mid- Atlantic storm, which had given them their impulse days
since, and would send them breaking upon the American
capes and beaches, in splendid tumult of foam, and roar, and
plunge ; ' white horses,' wearing rainbows in their manes.

The blue heaven full of sunshine ; the air full of sea-
tingle ; a morning to feel the throb and spring of the vessel
under one's feet, as an answer to the throb and spring of
one's own life and eagerness ; the leap of strength in the
veins, and the homeward haste in the heart.

Two gentlemen, who had talked much together in the nine

124 THE OTHER GIRLS -

days of their ship-companionship, stood together at the
taffrail.

One was the Reverend Hilary Vireo, minister of Mavis
Place Chapel, Boston, — coming back to his work in glorious
renewal from his eight weeks' holiday in Europe. The other
was Christopher Kirkbright, younger partner of the house of
Ferguson, Ramsay, and Kirkbright, tea and silk merchants,
Hong Kong. Christopher Kirkbright had gone out to China
from Glasgow, at the age of twenty-one, pledged to a ten
years' stay. For five years past, he had had a share in the
Tjusiness for himself ; for the two last, he had represented
also the interest of Grahame Kirkbright, his uncle, third
partner ; had inherited, besides, half of his estate ; the other
half had come to our friend at home, his sister. Miss
Euphrasia.

' I had no right to stay out there any longer, making my
tools ; multiplying them, without definite purpose. It was
time to put them to their use ; and I have come home to find
it. A man may take till thirty-one to get ready, mayn't he,
Mr. Vireo ? '

*The man wHo took up the work of the world's salvation,
began to be about thirty years of age when he came forth to
public ministry,' returned Mr. Viero.

* I never thought of that before. I wonder I never did. It
has come home to me, in many other parts of that Life, how
full it is of scarcely recognised analogy to prevailing human
■experience. That "driving into the Wilderness!" What ati
inevitable interval it is between the realising of a special
power and the finding out of its special purpose ! I am in
the Wilderness,— or was, — ^Vireo ; but I 'knew my way lay
through it ,1 have been pausing— thinking — striving to
"know. The temptations may not have been wanting, alto-
gether, either. There are so many things one can do easily ;
•considering one's self, largely, in the plan. My whole life has
waited, in some chief respects, till the end of these ten
pledged years. What was I to do with it ? Where was I to
look for, and find most speedily, all that a man begins to fed
the desire to establish for himself at thirty years old ? Home,
society, sphere ; I can tell you it is a strange feeling to take
one's fortune in one's hand and come forth from such a

CRISTOFERO 125

business exile, and choose where one will make the first
link, — decide the first condition, which may draw after all
the rest. Happily, I had my sister to come home to ; and I
had the remembrance of the little story my mother told me —
about my name. I think she looked forward for the boy who-
could know so little then of the destiny partly laid out for
him already.'

* About your name?' reminded Mr. Vireo. He always
liked to hear the whole of a thing ; especially a thing that
touched and influenced spiritually.

*Yes. The story of Saint Cristofero. The strongman^
Offero, who would serve the strongest ; who served a great
king, till he learned that the king feared Satan ; who then
sought Satan and served him, till he found that Satan feared
the Cross ; who sought for Jesus, then, that he might serve
Him, and found a hermit who bade him fast and pray. But
he would not fast, since from his food came his strength to
serve with ; nor pray, because it seemed to him idle ; but he
went forth to help those who were in danger of being swept
away, as they struggled to cross the deep, wide River. He
bore them through upon his shoulders, — the weak, the little,
the weary. At last he bore a little child who entreated him ;
and the child grew heavy, and heavier, till, when they reached
the other side, Offero said, — " I feel as if I had borne the
whole world upon my shoulders ! " And he was answered, —
** Thou may'st say that ; for thou hast borne Him who made ■
the world." And then he knew that it was the Lord; and he
was called no more " Offero," but " Cristofero." My mother
told me that when I was a little child ; and the story has
grown in me. The Christ has yet to be borne on men's
shoulders,'

Hilary Vireo stood and listened with gleaming eyes. Of
course, he knew the old saint-legend ; of course, Christopher
Kirkbright supposed it ; but these were men who understood
without the saying, that the verities are for ever old and for
ever new. A mother's wise and tender tale, — a child's life
growing into a man's, and sanctifying itself with a purpose, —
these were the informing that filled afresh every sentence of
the story, and made its repetition a most fair and sweet
origination.

126 THE OTHER GIRLS

'And so/ —

' And so, I must earn my name/ said Christopher Kirk-
bright, simply.

* Lift them up, and take them across,' said Hilary Vireo,
as if thinking it over to himself. The old story had quickened
him. A grand perception came to him for his friend, who
had begged him to think for and advise him. ' Lift" them up
and take them across ! ' he repeated, looking into Mr. Kirk-
bright's face, and speaking the words to him with warm
energy. * They are waiting — so many of them ! They are
sinking down — so many ! They want to be lifted through.
They want — and they want terribly — a place of safety on the
other side. Go down into the river of temptation, and hard-
ship, and sin, and help them out of it, Christopher. Take
them up out of their cruel conditions ; make a place for some
of them to begin over again in ; for some of them to rest in,
once in a while, and take courage. Why shouldn't there be
cities of refuge, now, Kirkbright? Men are mapping out
towns for their own gain, all over the land, wherever a water
power or a railroad gives the chance for one to grow ; why
not build a Hope for the hopeless ? Nowhere on earth could
that be done as it could in our own land ! '
. . * A City of Refuge ! ' Kirkbright repeated the words
gravely, earnestly ; like those of some message of an angel
of the Lord, that sounded with self-attested authority in his
ears.

After a pause, in which his thought followed out the word
of suggestion into a swift dream of possible fulfilment, he
said to his companion, —

'I believe there was nothing in that old Jewish economy,
Vireo, that was not given as a "pattern of things" that should
be. That wfeole Old Testament is a type and prophecy of
the kingdom coming. Only it was but the first Adam. It
was given right into the very conditions that illustrated it^
need. It would have meant nothing, given into a society of
angels. Yet because men were not angels, but very mortal
and sinful men, we of to-day fling contempt upon the Myth
of the Salvation of God ! It will stand, for all that, — that
history of God's intimacy with men. It was lived, not told
as a vision, that it might stand ! It was lived, to show how

CRISTOFERO 127

near, in spite of sin, God came, and stayed. The second
coming shall be without sin unto salvation.'

* Tm not sure, Kirkbright, but you ought to be a minister.'
'Not to stand in a pulpit. God helping me, I mean to be

A minister. Wouldn't a preacher be satisfied to hane studied
a week upon a sermon, if he knew that on Sunday, preaching
\\y he had sent it, live, into one living soul ? Fifty-two souls
a year, to reach and save, — would not that be enough ? Well,
then, every day a man might be giving the Lord's word out
somewhere, in some fashion, I think. He needn't wait for
the Sundays. Everybody has a congregation in the course
of the week. I don't doubt the week-day service is often you
preachers' best.'

* I know it is,' Hilary Vireo replied.

* Come down into the cabin with me,' said Mr. Kirkbright.
* I want to look up that old pattern. It will tell me some-
thing.'

Down in the cabin they seated themselves together where
they had had many a talk before, at a comer table near Mr.
Kirkbright's state-room door. Out of the state-room he had
brought his Bible.

He had got hold of one word in that old ordination, —
^unawares.'

* " He that doeth it unawares^^ ' he repeated, holding the
Bible with his finger between the half-shut leaves, at that
thirty-fifth chapter of Numbers. ' How that reminds of, and
connects with, the Atoning Prayer, — "Forgive them, for
they know not what they do ! " " Sins, negligences, igno-
rances ; " how they shade and change into each other ! If
all the mistakes could be forgiven and set right, how much
evil, virulent and unmixed, would there be left in the world,
do you suppose ? '

* Not more than there was before the mistakes began,'
replied Vireo. ' Like the Arabian genie, the monster would
be drawn down from its horrible expansion to a point again,
—the point of a possibility ; the serpent suggestion of evil
choice. When God has done his work of forgiving, there is
where it will be, I think ; and the Son of the woman shall
set his heel upon its head.'

* I wish' I could see what lies behind this,' said Mr. Kirk-

128 THE OTHER GIRLS

bright. ' " He shall abide in it unto the death of the high-
priest/' and after that, " the slayer shall return into the l^nd
of his possession." That might almost seem to point to the
old sacrificial idea ; the atonement by death. I cannot rest
in that. I wish I could see its whole meaning, — ^for meaning
it must have, and a meaning of life^

^A temporary ministry; a limited exile; the one the
measure of the other,' said Hilary Vireo, slowly thinking it
out, and taking the book from the hand of his friend, to look
over the words themselves, as he did so.

'The glory is in the promise : "he shall return unto the
land of his possession." His life shall be given back to
him, — all that it was meant to be. It shall be kept open for
him, till the time of his banishment is over. Meanwhile,
over even this period is a holy providing, an anointed com-
mission of grace.'

' But hear this,' he continued, turning to the Epistle to the
Hebrews, *andt)ut the suggestions alongside. All but God's
final and eternal best is transitional. " They truly were many
priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason
of death. But this man, because He continueth ever, hath
an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore He is able also to
save them to the uttermost, that come to God by Him."
Did it ever occur to you to think about that saving to the
uttermost ? Not a scrap of blessed possibility forfeited, lost ?
All gathered up, restored, put into our hands again, from the
redeeming hands of Christ? 'Backward and forward, through
all that was irretrievable to us ; sought, and traced, and
found, and brought back with rejoicing ; the whole house
swept, until not one silver piece is missing. That is the
return into the Jand of our possession. That'is God's salva-
tion and his gospel ! That is what shall come to pass. Not
yet ; not while we are only under the lesser ministry ; but
when that priesthood over the time of our waiting ends, and
we have believed unto the full appearing of the Lord ! '

The speaker's face flushed and glowed ; Hilary Vireo,
always glad and strong in look and bearing, was grandly joy-
ful when the power of the gospel he had to preach came
upon him ; the gospel of a full, perfect, and unstinted hope.

'Is that what you tell your simple people?' asked

LETTERS AND LINKS 129

Christopher Kirkbright^ fixing deeply eager eyes upon
him.

' Yes ; just that In simplest words, changed and repeated
often. It is the whole burden of my message. What other
message is there, to men's soul's ? " Repent, and receive the
remission of your sins!" Build yoxu: city of refuge, Mr.
Kirkbright, and show them a beginning of that fulfilment.'

Whist and euchre tables not far off were breaking up, just
before lunch, with laughter and raised voices. Ladies were
coming down from the deck. In the stir, Mr. Viero rose and
went away. Christopher Kirkbright carried his Bible back
into his state-room, and shut the door

CHAPTER XII.

LETTERS AND LINKS.

That same September morning. Miss Euphrasia, sitting in
her pretty comer room at Mrs. Georgeson's, — just retiuned
to her city hfe from the rest and sweetness of a country
summer, — ^had letters brought to her door.

The first was in a thin, strong, blue envelope, with London
and Liverpool postmarks, and * per Steamer Calabria,' written
up in the comer, business-wise, with the date, and a dash
-underneath. Thi^ she opened first, for the English post-
marks, associated with that handwriting, gave her a sudden
thrill of bewildered siuprise : —

*My dear Sister, — ^Within a very few days after this
will reach you, I hope myself to land in America, and to see
if, after all these years, you and I can do something about a
home together. We learn one good of long separations, by
what we get of them in this world. We can't help beginning
again, if not actually where we left off, at least with the
thought we left off at, live and fresh in our hearts. The
thought, I mean, as regards each other ; we have both got
some thoughts uppermost by this time, doubtless, that we had

130 THE OTHER GIRLS

not lived to then. At any rate, I have, who had ten years
ago only the notions and dreams of twenty-one. I come
straight to you with them, just as I went from you, dear elder
sister, with your love and blessing upon me, into the great>
working world.

*Send a line to meet me in New York at Frazer and
Doubleda/s, and let me know your exact whereabouts. I
found Sherrett here, and had a run to Manchester with him
to see Amy. That's the sort of thing I can't believe when I
do see it, — Mary's baby married and housekeeping ! I'm
glad you are my elder, Effie ; I shall not see much difference
in you. Thirty-one and forty-three will only have come
nearer together. And you are sure to be what only such
fresh-souled women as you can be at forty-three.'

With this little touch of loving compliment the letter
ended.

Miss Euphrasia got up and walked over to her toilet-glass. ■
Do you think, with all her outgoing goodness, she had not
enough in her for this, of that sweet woman-feeling that
desires a true beauty-blossoming for each good season, of life
as it comes ? A pure, gentle showing, in face and voice and
movement, of all that is lovely for a woman to show, and
that she tcils one of God's own words by showing, if only it
be true, and not a putting on of falseness ?

If Miss Euphrasia had not cared what she would seem like
in the eyes as well as to the heart of this brother coming
home, there would have been something wanting to her of
genuine womanhood. Yet she had gone daily about her
Lord's business, thinking of that first ; not stopping to watch
the graying or thinning of hairs, or the gathering of life-lines
about eyes and month, or studying how to replace or smooth
or disguise anything. She let her life write itself ; she only
made all fair, according to the sense of true grace that was in
her ; fair as she could, with that which remained. She had
neither neglected, nor feverishly contrived and worried ; and
so at forty-three she was just what Christopher, with his
Scotch second-sight, beheld her ; what she beheld herself
now, as she went to look at her face in the glass, and to guess
what he would think of it.

LETTERS AND LINKS 131

She saw a picture like this : —

Soft, large eyes, with no world-harass in them ; little curves
imprinted at the corners that may be as beautiful in later age
as lip-dimples are in girlhood ; a fair, broad forehead, that
had never learned to frown ; lines about mouth and chin, in
sweet, honest harmony with the record of the eyes ; no strain,
no distortion of consciousness grown into haggard womness ;
a fine, open, contented play of feature had wrought over all
like a charm of sunshine, to soften and brighten continually.
Her hair had been golden-brown ; there was plenty of it
still; it had kept so much of the gold that it was now hke a
tender mist through which the light flashes and smiles. Of
all colour-changes, this is the rarest.

Miss Euphrasia smiled at her own look. ^ It is the home-
face, I guess ; Christie will know it' ' Smiling, she showed
white edges of perfect teeth.

^ What a silly old thing I am !' she said, softly ; and she
blushed up and looked prettier yet.

*Why, I will not be such a fool I' she exclaimed, then,
really mdignant ; and sat down to read her second letter,
which she had half foi^otten : —

'Brickfield Farms (near Tillington), Maine.

'Dear Miss Euphrasia, — I have not written to you
since we left Conway, because there seemed so little really to
trouble you with ; but your kind letter coming the other day
made me feel as if I must have a talk with you, and perhaps
tell you something which I did not fully tell you before. We
left our address with Mr. Dill, although except you, I hardly
know of anybody from whom a letter would be likely to come.
Isn't it strange, how easily one may slip aside and drop out
of everything ? We heard of thi^ place from some people
who had been to Sebago Lake and Pleasant Mountain, and
up from there across the country to Gorham, and so round to
Conway through the Glen.

'Mother was not well at Conway; indeed, dear Miss
Euphrasia, she is more ill, perhaps, than I dare to think.
She is very weak ; I dread another move, and the winter is
so near ! May be the pleasant October weather will build
her up ; at any rate, we must stay here until she is much

132 THE OTHER GIRLS

better. We have found such good, kind, plain people ! I
will tell you presently how nice it is for us, and the plans I
have been able to make for the present. It has been a very
expensive summer ; we have moved about so much ; and in
all the places where we have been before, the board has been
so high. At Lebanon and Sharon it was dreadful ; I really
had to worry mother to get away ; and then Stowe was not
much better, and at Jefferson the air was too bracing. At
Crawford's it was lovely, but the bill was fearful ! So we
drifted down, till we finished August in Conway, and heard of
this. I wish we had known of it at the beginning ; but then
I suppose it would not have suited mother for all summer. ,

' I had a great worry at Sharon, Miss Euphrasia, and it
has grown worse since. I can't help being afraid mother has
been dreadfully cheated. We got acquainted with some
people there; a Mr. and Mrs. Farron Saftleigh, rich
Westerners, who made a good deal of show of everjrthing ;
money, and talk, and conjugal devotion, and friendship.
Mrs. Saftleigh came a great deal to mother's room, and gave
her all the little chat of the place, — I'm afraid I don't amuse
mother myself so much as I ought, but some things do seem
so tiresome to tell over, when you've seen more than enough
of them yourself, — and she used to take her out to drive
nearly every day.

'Well, it seemed that Mr. Saftleigh had gone out West
only six years ago, and had made all his money since, in land
and railroad business. Mrs. Saftleigh said tiat "whatever
Farron touched was sure to double." She meant money ; but
I thought of our perplexities when she said it, and he certainly
has managed to double them. He went to New York two or
three times while we were at the Springs ; he was transacting
railway business ; getting stock taken up in the new piece of
road laid out from Latterend to Donnowhair ; and he was at
the head of a company that had bought up all the land along
the route. " Sure to sell at enormous profits any time after
the railroad was opened." Poor mother got so feverish about
it ! She didn't see why our little money shouldn't be doubled
as well as other people's. And then she cried so about being
left a widow, with nobody out in the world to get a share of
anything for her ; and Mrs. Saftleigh used to tell her that

LETTERS AND LINKS 133

such work was just what friends were made for, and it was so
providential that she had met her here just now; and she
was always calling her " sweet Mrs. Argenter."

' Nobody could help it ; mother worried herself sick, when
I begged her to wait till we could come home and consult
some friend we knew. " The chance would be lost for ever,'*
she said ; " and who could be kinder than the Saftleighs, or
could know half so much ? Mr. Farron Saftleigh risked his
own money in it." And at last, she wrote home and had her
Dorbury mortgage sold, and paid eight thousand dollars of it
to Mr. Saftleigh, for shares in the railroad, and land in
Donnowhair. And, dear Miss Euphrasia, that is all weVe
got now, except just a, few hundred dollars on deposit in the
Continental, and the other four thousand of the mortgage,
that mother put into Manufacturers' Insurance stock, to
pacify me. If the land doest^t sell out there in six months, as
Mr. Saftleigh says it will, I don't know where any more
income for us is to come from.

' lam saving all I can here, for the winter must cost. You
would laugh if you knew how I am saving ! I am helping
Mrs. Jeffords do her work, and she doesn't charge me any
board, and so I lay up the money without letting mother
know it. I don't feel as if that were quite right,— or com-
fortable, at least ; but after all, why shouldn't she be cheated
a little bit the other way, if it is possible ? That is why I
hope we shall be here all through October.

* We are having lovely weather now ; not a sign of frost.
Although this place is so far north, it is sheltered by great
hills, and seems to lie under the lee, both ways, of high
mountain ranges, so that the cold does not really set in very
early. It is a curious place. I wish I had left room to tell
you more about it. There is a great level basin, around
which slope the uplands, rising farther and farther on every
side except the south, until you get among the real mountain
, regions. On these slopes are the farms ; the Jeffords', and
the Applebees', and the Patchons', and the Stilphins'.
Aren't they quaint, comfortable old country names ? I think
they only have such names among farmers. The name of
the place, — or rather neighbourhood, for I don't know where
place actually is — there are three places, and they are all

134 THE OTHER GIRLS

four or five miles off— Mill Village, and Pemunk, and San-
don ; the name of the neighbourhood, — Brickfield Farms,
comes from there having been brickmaking done here at one
time ; but it was given up. The man who owned it got in
debt, and failed, I believe ; and nobody has taken hold of it
again, because 'it is so far from lines of transportation ; but
there are some cottages about the foot of Cone Hill, where
the labourers used to live ; and a big, queer, old red brick
house, that looks as if it were walking up stairs, — ^built on
flat, natural steps of the rock, and so climbing up, room be-
hind room, with steps inside to correspond I have liked so
much to go through it, and imagine stories about it, though all
the story there is, is that of Mr, Flavins Josephus Browne,
the man of the brick enterprise, who built it in this odd way,
and probably imagined a story for himself that he never
lived out in it, because his money and his business came to
an end. How strange it is that work doesn't always make
moftey, and that it takes so much combination to make any-
thing worth while ! I wonder that even men know just what
to do. And as for women, — why, when they take to elbowing
men out, what will it all come to ?

* I have written on, until I have written off some of my
heavy feelings that I began with. If I could only talk to you,
my dear Miss Euphrasia, I think they would all go. But I
will not trouble you any longer now ; I am quite ashamed
of the great packet this will make when it is folded up. But
you told me to let you know all about myself, and I can't
help minding such an injunction as that !

* Yours gratefully and affectionately always,

'Sylvie Argenter.'

Miss Kirkbright had not read this straight through with-
out a pause. Two or three times she had let her hands drop
to her lap with the letter in <them, and sat thinking. When
she canie to what Sylvie said about her ' laughing to know
how she had been saving,' Miss Euphrasia stopped, not to
laugh, but to wipe tears from her eyes.

' The poor, dear, brave little soul ! ' she said to herself.
'And that blessed Mrs. Jeffords, — to let her think she is

LETTERS AND UNKS 135

earning her board witli ironing sheets^ perhaps^ and washing
dishes! Km!'

That last unspellable sound was a half choke and half
•chuckle, that Miss Euphrasia siuprised herself in making
out of the sudden, mixed impulse to sob, and laugh, and to
catch somebody in her arms and kiss that wasn't there.

' If I were an angel, I suppose I could wait,' she went on
saying to herself after that ' But even for them, it must be
liard work sometimes. And so, — how the great Reasons
"Why flash upon one out of one's own little experience ! — of
that wonderful, blessed Day, when all shall be made right,
the angels in heaven know not, neither the Son, but the
Father only ! The Lord cannot even trust the pure human
that is in Himself to dwell, separately, upon that End which
is to be, but may not be yet ! '

I do not suppose anything whatever could come into Miss
Euphrasia's life, 6r touch her with its circumstance, that she
-did not straightway read in it the wider truth beyond the
letter. She was a Swedenborgian, not after SwedeiJborg,
but by the hving gift itself. Her insight was no separate
thing, taken up and used now and then, of a purpose. It
was as different from that as eyes are from spectacles. She
•could not help her little sermons. They preached them-
:selves to her and in her, continually. So, if we go along with
her, we must take her with her interpretations. Some friend
said of her once, that she was a life with marginal notes ;
•and the notes were the larger part of it.

But Miss Euphrasia found a postscript, presently, to Sylvie's
letter, written hurriedly on the other side of the last leaf; as
if she had made haste, before she should lose courage and
change her mind about saying it : —

*Do you think it would be possible to find any sort of
place in Boston where I could do something to help pay,
this winter, — and will you try for me ? I could sew, or do
little things about a house, or read or write for somebody.
I could help in a nursery, or teach, some hours in a day,
— ^hours when mother likes to be quiet ; and she would not
know.'

This was essential. ' Mother must not know.'

The finding of this postscript drove out of Miss Euphra-

136 THE OTHER GIRLS

sia's mind another thought that had suddenly come into it
as she turned the letter over in her fingers. It was some
minutes before she went back to it ; minutes in which she
was quite absorbed with simple suggestions and peradven-
tures in Sylvie's behalf. 4

But — * Brickfield Farms? Sandon? Josephus Browne,'
When had she heard those names before ? What hopeless
piece of property was it she had heard her brother-in-law
speak of long ago, — somewhere down East, — ^where there
were old kilns and clay-pits? Something that had come
into or passed through his hands for a debt ?

* There is a great tangling of links here. What are they
shaken into my fingers for, I wonder ? What is there here
to be tied, or to be unraveled ? '

For she believed firmly, always, that things did not happen
in a jumble, however jumbled they might seem. Though
she could scarcely keep two thoughts together of the many
crowded ones that had come to her, one upon another, this
strange morning, she was sure the Lord knew all about it^
and that He had not sent them upon her in any real confu-
sion. She knew that there was no precipitance — ^no incon-
sequence — ^with Him.

^ They are threads picked out for some work that He will
do,' she said, as she tucked her brother's letter into a low,
broad basket beside the white and rose and violet wools
vath which she was at odd minutes crocheting a dainty foot-
spread for an invalid friend, and the other in her pocket.

' Now I will tie my bonnet on, and go, as I had meant, to
see Desire. That, also, is a piece of this same morning.'

Miss Kirkbright, likewise, watched and learned a story that
told and repeated itself as it went along, of a House that was
building bit by bit, and of a life that lay about it Only hers
was the house the Lord builds ; and the stories of it, and all
the sentences of the story, were the thine^ He daily put to-
gether.

137

CHAPTER XIII.

RACHEL FROKE'S TROUBLE.

Desire was out. She had gone down to Neighbour Street,
to see Luclarion Grapp.

Luclarion had a Home there now ; a place where girls
and women came and went, and always found a rest and a
welcome, to stay a night, or a week, or as long as they
needed, provided only, that they entered into the work and
spirit of the house while they did stay.

Luclarion still sold her good, cheap white loaves and
brown, her muffins and her crumpets ; and she had what she
called her * big baking room,' were a dozen women could
work at the troughs and the kneaders and the ovens ; and in
this bakery they learned an honest trade that would stand
them in stead for self-support, whether to furnish a commo-
dity for sale, or in homes where daily bread must be put to-
geliier as well as prayed for.

* You can do something now that all the world wants done ;
that's as good as a gold mine, and ever so much better,' said
Luclarion Grapp.

Then she had a laundry. From letting her lodgers wash
and iron for themselves, to put their scanty wardrobes into
the best condition and repair, she went on to showing them
nice work and taking it in for them to do ; xmtil now there
were some dozen families who sent her weekly washing, three
to five dollars' worth each; and for ten montiis in the year a
hundred and eighty dollars were her average receipts.

Down at ' The Neighbours,' — as from the name of the
street and the spirit and growth of the thing it had come to
be called, — they had * Evenings ; ' when friends of the place
came in and made it pleasant ; brought books and pictures,
flowers and fruit, and made a little treat of it for mind and
heart and body. It was some plan for one of these that had
taken Desire and Hazel to Miss Grapp's to-day.

Miss Euphrasia's first feeling was disappointment. It

138 THE OTHER GIRLS

seemed as if her morning were going a wee wrong after all.
But her second thought— that it was surely all in the day's
work, and had happened so by no mistake — took her in, with
-a cheery and really expectant face, to Rachel Froke's gray
parlour, to * sit her down a five minutes, and rest.' She con-
fidently looked for her business then to be declared to her, since
the business she thought she had come upon was set aside.

* I have had a great mind to come to thee,' were the first
words Rachel said, as her visitor seated herself in the low
•chair, twin to her own, which she kept for friends. Rachel
Froke liked her own ; but she never felt any special comfort
comfortably her own, until she could hold it thus duplicated.

* I have wanted for a little while past to talk to some one,
and Hapsie Craydocke would not do. Everything she knows
rshines so quickly out of those small kind eyes of hers.
Hapsie would have looked at me in an unspeakable way, and
told it all out too soon. I have a secret, Euphrasia, and it
troubleth me ; yet not very much for myself; and I know it
need not trouble me for anything. I have a reason that may
make me leave this place, — for a time at least ; and I am
sorry for Desire, for she will miss me. Frendely can do all
that I do, and she hath the same wish for everything at
heart ; but then who would help Frendely ? She could not
get on alone ; for thee knows the house is large, and Desire
is always very busy, with work that should not be hindered.
Can thee think of any way ? I cannot bear that any uncer-
tain, trustless person should come in here. There hath never
been a common servant in this house. Doesn't thee think
the Lord hath some one ready since He makes my place
-empty ? And how shall we go rightly to find out ? '

^Tell me first, Rachel, of your own matter. Is it any
trouble, — any grief or pain ?'

Rachel had quite forgot. The real trouble of it was this
perplexity that she had told. The rest of it — ^that she knew
was all right. She would not call it trouble — that which she
simply had to wait and bear ; but that in which she had to
do, and knew not just how to * go rightly about,' — it was that
tshe felt as the disquiet.

She smiled, and laid her hand upon her breast.

* The doctor calls it trouble — trouble here. But it may be

RACHEL FROKE'S TROUBLE 139

helped ; and there is a man in Philadelphia who treats such
ailments with great skill. My cousin-in-law, Lydia Froke,
will receive me at her house for this winter, if I will come and
try what he can do. Thee sees : I suppose I oug^ht to go.'
'And Desire knows nothing?'

* How could I tell the child, until I saw my way ? Now,
can thee think ?'

Rachel Froke repeated her simple question with an earnest-
ness as if nothing were between them at this moment but the
one thing to care for and provide. She waited for no word
of personal pity or sympathy to come first. She had grown
quite used to this fact that she had faced for herself, and
scarcely remembered that it must be a pain to Miss Kirk-
bright for her sake to hear it.

It was hard even for Miss Kirkbright to feel it at once as
a fact, looking in the fair, placid, smiUng face that spoke of
neither complaint nor pain nor fear; though a thrill had
gone through her at the first word and gesture which conveyed
the terrible perception, and had made her pale and grave.

* Must it be a servant to do mere servant's work ; or could
some nice young person, under Frendely's direction, relieve
her of the actual care that you have taken, and keep things
in the kitchen as they, are?'

* That is precisely the best thing, if we could be sure,' said
Rachel.

'Then I think perhaps I came herewith an errand straight
to you, though I had no knowledge of it in coming,' said Miss
Kirkbright

' That looks like the Lord's leading,' said Rachel Froke.
* There is always some sign to believe by.'

Miss Euphrasia took out Sylvie's letter, as the best way of
telling the story, and put it into Rachel Froke's hand She
did not feel it any breach of confidence to do so. Breach of
confidence is letting strange air in upon a tender matter.
The self-same atmosphere, the self-same temperature, — ^these
do not harm or change anything. It is only widening gra-
ciously that which the confidence came for, to let it touch a
heart tuned to the celestial key, ready with the same response
of understanding. There are friends one can trust with one's
self so ; sure that only by true and inward channels the word.

140 THE OTHER GIRLS

the thought, shall pass. Gossip — ^betrayal — sends from hand
to hand, from mouth to mouth ; tosses about our sacredness^
or the misinterpreted sign of it, on the careless surface. From
heart to heart it may be given without disloyalty. That is
the way God Himself works round for us.

' It is very clear to me,' said Rachel Froke, folding up the
sheets of the letter, and putting them back into their envelope.
' ShaU Desire read this ?'

* I think so. It would not be a real thing, xmless she
imderstood.'

So Desire had the letter to read that day when she came
home ; and then Rachel Froke told her how it was that she
must go away for a while ; and Desire went round to Miss
Euphrasia's room in the twilight, and gave her back her
letter, and talked it all over with her ; and they two next day
explained the most of it to Hazel. It was not needful that
she should know the very whole about Rachel or the Argen-
ters; only enough was said to make plain the real com-
panionship that was coming, and the mutual help that it
might be ; enough of the story to make Hazel cry out joyfully,
* Why, Desire ! Miss Kirkbright I She's another ! She
' belongs !' And then, without such drawback of sadness as
the other two had had to feel, she caught them each by a
hand, and danced them up and down a little dance before
the fire upon the hearth-rug — singing, —

* Four of us know the Muffin-man,
Five of us know the Muffin-man,
All of us know the Muffin-man,
That lives in Drury Lane.'

CHAPTER XIV.

MAVIS PLACE CHAPEL.

It was on the comer of Merle Street and Pavis Place. The

Reverend Hilary Vireo, as I have told you, was the minister.

It might have been called, if anybody had thought of it>

* The Chapel of the New Song.' For it was the very gospel

MAVIS PLACE CHAPEL. 141

of hope and gladness that Hilary Vireo preached there, and
had preached and livedfor twenty years, making lives to sing
that would have moaned.

' Haven't you a song in your heart, somewhere ? ' was his
word once, to a man of hard life, who came to him in a
trouble, and telling him of it, passed to a spiritual confi-
dence, such as Vireo drew out of people without the asking.
At the end of his story, the man had said that ' he supposed
it was as good as he ought to expect ; he hadn't any business
to look for better, and he must just bear it, for this life. He
hoped there was something afterwards for them that could
get to it, but he didn't know.'

'Aren't you ^/<ii/ of things, sometimes?' said Mr. Vireo.
* Of a pleasant day, even, — or a strong, fresh feeling in the
morning ? Don't you touch the edge of the great gladness
that is in this world, now and then, in spite of your own little
single worries ? Well, thafs what God means ; and the worry
is the interruption. He never means that. There's a great
song for ever singing, and we're all parts and notes of it, if we
will just let Him put us in tune. What we call trouble is
only his key, that draws our heart-strings truer, and brings
them up sweet and even to the heavenly pitch. Don't mind
the strain ; believe in the twte^ every time his finger touches
and sounds it. If you are glad for one minute in the day,
that is His minute ; the minute He means, and works for.'

The man was a tuner of pianofortes. He went away with
that lesson in his heart, to comeback to him repeatedly in his
own work, day by day. He had been believing in the twists
and stretches ; he began from that moment to believe in the
music touches, far apart though they might come. He lived
from a different centre ; the growth began to be according to
the life.

* It's queer,' he said once, long afterwards, reminding Mr.
Vireo of what he had spoken in the moment it was given
through him, and then forgotten. * A man can put himself
a'most where he pleases. Into a hurt finger or a toothache^
till it is all one great pain with him ; or outside of that,
into something he cares for, or can do with his well hand, till
he gets rid of it and forgets it. There's generally more com-
fort than ache, I do suppose, if we didn't live right in the

142 THE OTHER GIRLS

middle of the ache. But you see, that's the great secret to
find out. If ever we do get it, — complete' —

' Ah, that's the resurrection and the life,' said Mr. Vireo.

Among the crowd that waited about the open chapel doors,
and through the porches, and upon the stair-ways, one clear,
sunny, October morning, on which the congregation would
not gather quietly to its pews, stood this man, and many
another man, and woman, and little child, to whom a word
from Hilary Vireo was a word right out of heaven.

They would all have a first sight of him to-day, — ^his first
Sunday among them after the whole summer's absence in
Europe. He might easily not get into his pulpit at all, but
give his gift in crumbs, all the way along from the street
curb-stones to the aisles in the church above, — they waylaid
him so to snatch at it' from hand, face, voice, as he should
come in. ' It would not be altogether unlike Hilary Vireo, if
seeing things this way, he stopped right there amongst them,
to deal out heart-cheer and sympathy right and left, face to
face, and hand to hand, — the Gospel appointed for that day.

' What a crowd there'll be in heaven about some people ! *
said a tall, good-looking man to Hilary Vireo, in an under-
tone, as he came up the sidewalk with liim into the edge of
these waiting groups.

* May be. ThereTl be some scattering, I fancy, that we
don't look for. We shall find all our centres there,' returned
Mr. Vireo, hastily, as his people closed about him and the
hand-shaking began.

Christopher Kirkbright made his way to the stairs, as the
passage on one side became cleared by the drifting of the
parish over to the western door, by which the minister was
entering. A little way up he found his sister, sitting with a
young woman in the deep window ledge at the turn, whence
they could look quietly down and watch the scene. Over-
head, the heavy bell swung out slow, intermitted peals, that
thrilled down through all the timbers of the building, and
forth upon the crisp autumn air.

' My brothet — Miss Ledwith,' said Miss Euphrasia, intro-
ducing them.

Desire Ledwith looked up. The inteiisity that was in her
gray eyes turned full into Christopher Kirkbright's own. It

MAVIS PLACE CHAPEL. 143-

was like the sudden shifting of a lens through which sun-ray s<
were pouring. She had been so absorbed with watching and
thinking, that her face had grown keen and earnest without
her knowing, as it had been always wont to do ; only it was
different from the old way in this, — that while the other had
been eager, asking, unsatisfied, this was simply deep, intent ; a
searching outward, that was answered and fed simultaneously
from within and behind; it was the transmitted light by
which the face of Moses shone, standing between the Lord
and the people.

She was not beautiful now^ any more than she had been
as a very young girl, when we first knew her ; in feature^ .
that is, and with mere outward grace ; but her earnestness
had so shaped for itself, with its continual, tmthwarted flow,.
a natural and harmonious outlet in brow and eyes ; in ev6ry
curve by which the face conforms itself to that which
genuinely animates it, that hers was now a countenance
truly radiant of Ufe, hope, purpose. The small, thin, clear-
cut nose,— -the lip comers dropped with untutored simplicity
into a rest and decision that were better than sparkle and
smile, — ^the coolness, the strength, that lay in the very tint
and tone of her complexion, — these were all details of cha-
racter that had asserted itself. It had changed utterly one
thing ; the old knitting and narrowing of the forehead were
gone ; instead, the eyes had widened their spaces with a real-
calm that had grown in her, and their outer curves fell in
lines of largeness and content towards the contour of the
cheeks, making an artistic harmony with them.

It was not a face, so much as a living soul, that turned
itself towards Miss Euphrasia's brother, as Miss Kirkbright
spoke his name and Desire's.

For some reason, he found himself walking into the church
beside them afterwards, thinking oddly of the etymology oF
that word, ^ introduced.'

' Brought within ; behind the barriers; made really known.
Effie gave me a glimpse of that girl, — ^her self, I don't
think I was ever so really introduced before.' ^

He did not know at all who Miss Ledwith was ; she might
have been one of the chapel protdgdes ; from Hanover or
Neighbour Street, or where not ; they all looked nice, in their

144 THE OTHER GIRLS

Sunday dress ; those who were helped to dress were made to
look as nice as anybody.

Desire Ledwith had on a dark maroon-coloured serge, made
very simply ; bordered, I believe, with just a little roll bind-
ing of velvet around the upper skirt. Any shop-girl might
have worn that ; any shop-girl would, perhaps, have been
scarcely satisfied to wear the plain black hat, with just one
curly tip of ostrich feather tucked in where the velvet band
was folded together around it

Desire sat with her class; it was her family, she said;
her church-family, at any rate ; she had chosen her scholars
from those who had no parents to come with, and sit by ;
they were all glad of their home-place weekly, at her side.

Miss Kirkbright and her brother went into the minister's
pew. Miss Kirkbright did not usually come to the service ;
the school, in which she taught, met in the afternoon ; but
this was Mr. Vireo's first Sunday, and his friend, her
brother Christopher, had just come home with him across
the Atlantic.

There was singing, in which nearly every voice joined ;
there was praying, in which one voice spoke as to a Presence
felt close beside ; and all the people felt at least that he felt
it, and that therefore it must be there. They believed in it
through him, as we all believe in it through Christ, who is in
the bosom of the Father. That they might some time come
where he stood now, and know as he knew, many of them
were simply, carefully, daily, striving to ^ do the WiU.*

He spoke to them of * joumeyings ; ' of how God was
everywhere in the whole earth ; of how Abraham had the
Lord with him, as he travelled up through a land he knew
not, as he dwelt in Padan Aram, as he crossed the desert
and came down through the hill-country into Canaan. Of
how the Lord met Jacob at Bethel, when he was on his way
through strange places, to go and serve his uncle Laban ;
how he went with Joseph into Egypt, and afterwards led out
the Children of Israel through forty years of wandering,
showing them signs, and comforting them all the way ; how
* He leadeth me ' is still the believer's song, still the heart-
meaning of every human life.

* Whether we go or stay, as to place, we all move on ;

MAVIS PLACE CHAPEL. 145

from our Mondays to our Saturdays ; from one experience
to another ; and before us and beside us, passes always and
abides near that presence of the Lord, Do you know what
*^the Lord" means ? It is, the bread-giver; the feeder; the
provider of every little thing. That is the name of God
when He comes close to himianity. In the beginning, God
created the heavens and the earth; but the Lord spoke unto
Adam ; the Lord appeared unto Abraham ; the LordvfSLS the
God of Israel

* God is our Lord ; our daily leader ; our bread-giver, from
meal to meal, from mouthful to mouthful The Angel of his
Presence saves us continually. And in these latter days, the
** Lord " is " Christ ; " the human love of Him come down
into our souls, to take away our sins, — to give us bread from
heaven to eat ; to fulfil in the inward kingdom every type
and sign of the old leading ; through need and toil, through
strange places, through tedious waitings, through the long
wilderness, and over the river into the Land that is beautiful
and very far off.'

The four walked away from the church together; they
stopped on the comer of Borden Street, Here Desire and
Mr. Viero would leave them, — their way lying down the hill.

* I liked your doctrine of the Lord,' said Miss Euphrasia to
the minister. * That is true New Church interpretation, as I
receive it.'

' How can anyone help seeing it ? It shines so through
the whole,' said Desire.

* Leader and Giver ; it is the one revelation of Scripture,
from beginning to end,' said Mr. Viero. " Come forth into
the land that I shall show thee." "Follow Me, and I will
give unto you everlasting life/' The same call in the Old
Testament and in the New.'

' " One Lord, one faith, one baptism," ' repeated Miss
Euphrasia.

* Leading — by the hand\ giving — morsel by morsel^ said
Mr. Kirkbright, emphasizing the near and dear detail.

* That makes me think,' said Miss Euphrasia, suddenly.
* Desire,' she went on, without explaining why, *■ we are going
up to Brickfield Farms next week, Christopher and I. Why
shouldn't you go too, — and bring her home, you know ? '

146 THE OTHER GIRLS

As true as she lived, Miss Euphr^ia hadn't a thought —
whatever you may think— ^of this and that, or anything, when
she said it.

Except the simple fact, that it was beautiful October
weather, and that she should like it, and that Sylvie and
Desire would get acquainted.

'It will do you good. You'd better,' said Mr. Viero,.
kindly.

Christopher Kirkbright s^d nothing, of course. There
was nothing for him to say. He did not think very much.
He only had a passing feeling that it would be pleasant to>
see this grave-faced girl again, and to imderstand her,
perhaps, a little.

CHAPTER XV.

BONNY BOWLS.

The great show house at Pomantic was almost finished.
The architect's and builder's cares were over. '^ There was a
stained glass window to go in upon the high second landing
of the splendid carved oak staircase, through which gold and
rose and purple light should pour down upon the panels of
the soft-tinted walls and the rich inlaying of the floors.
There was a little polishing of walnut work and oiling of dark
pine in kitchen and laundry, and the fastening on of a few
silver knobs and faucets here and there, up-stairs, remaining^
to be done; then it would be ready for the upholsterer.

Mr. Newrich had builded better than he thought ; thanks
to the delicate taste and the genius of his architect, and the
careful skill of his contractor. He was proud of his elegant
mansion, and fancied that it expressed himself, and the glory
that his life had grown to.

Frank Sunderline knew that it expressed ^i>»-self ; for he
had put himself— -his hope, his ambition, his sense of right
and fitness — into every stroke and line. Now that it was
don^ it was more his than the man's who paid the bills,—
< out of his waistcoat pocket,' as he exultingly said to his*

BONNY BOWLS. 147

wife. The designer and the builder had paid for it out of
brain and heart and wiU^ and were the real men who had got
a new creation and possession of their own, though they
should turn their backs upon their finished labour, and never
go within the walls again.

It was a kind of a Sunday feeling with which Frank Sunder-
line was glad, though it was the middle of the week. The
sense of accomplishment is the Sunday feeling. It is the
very feeling in which God Himself rested ; and out of his
own joy bade all his sons rest Ukewise in their turn, every
time that they should end a six days' toil.

Frank Simderline had been in Boston all the afternoon,
making up accounts and papers with his employers. He came
roimd to Pilgrim Street to tea.

He had got into a way of coming in to teU the Ingrahams
the story of his work as it went on, at the same time that he
continued his friendly relation with their own affairs, as
always ready to do any little turn for them in which a man
could be of service. This Sunday rest of his, — though a
busier day had not gone over his head since the week began,
— ^must be shared and crowned by them.

There is no subtler test of an unspoken — perhaps an un-
examined — relation of a man with his women friends, than
this instinctive turning with his Sabbath content and rest to
the companionship he feels himself most moved to when it
is in his heart All custom, however homely, grows out of
some reality, more than out of any more convenience ; this
is why the Simday coming of the country lover means so
much more than his common comings, and sets an established
seal upon them all.

Walking down Roulstone Street, the lowering afternoon
sun full in his face across the open squares, Frank Sunder-
line thought how pleasant it would be to have Ray
Ingraham to go out to Pomantic such an afternoon as this,
and see what he had done ; just now, while it was still his
work, warm from his hand, and before it was shut away from
her and him by the Newrich carpets, and curtains, and
china, and servants going in and fastening the doors upon
them.

He would make a treat of it, — a holiday,— if she would go ;

148 THE OTHER GIRLS

he would come and take her with a horse and buggy. He
would not ask her to go with him in the open cars and be
stared at.

He had never thought of asking her to go to ride, or of
showing her any set ^attention' before. Frank Sunderline
was not one of the young fellows who begin, and begin in a
hurry, at that end.

He walked faster, as it came into his head at that moment ;
something of the same perception that would come to her, —
if she cared for this asking of his, — came to him with the
sudden suggestion that it was the next, the natural thing to
do ; that their friendship had grown so far as that The
story comes to a man with some such beautiful, scarce-antici-
pated steps of revelation as it does to a woman, when he
takes his life in the true, whole, patient order, and does not
go about to make some pretty sham of hving before he has
done any real living at all.

Yes ; he would ask her to ride out to Pomantic with him
to-morrow ; and he thought she would go.

He liked her looks, to-night ; he looked at her with this
plan in his thoughts, and it lighted her up ; he was conscious
of his own notice of her, and of what it had grown to in
him, insensibly, knowing her so well and long. He analysed,
or tried to analyse, his rest and pleasure in her ; the reason
why all she did and wore and said had such a sweet and
winning fitness to him. What was it that made her look so
different from other girls, and yet so nice ?

' I like the way you dress, Ray ; you and Dot ; ' he said to
her, when tea was over and taken away, and she was re-
placing the cloth and setting the sewing-lainp down upon the
table. ^You don't snarl yourselves up. I can't bear a
tangle of things.'

Ray coloured.

*You mean skirts, I suppose,' she said, laughing. *We
can't afford two apiece, at a time. So we have taken to
aprons.'

It was a very simple expedient, and yet it came near
enough to custom to avoid a strait and insufficient look.
They wore plain black cashmere dresses, plaited in at the
waist, and belted to their pretty figures ; over these, round.

BONNY BOWLS 149

full aprons, tied behind with broad, hemmed bows. They
were of cross-barred muslin, for every day, — cheap and
pretty and fresh ; black silk ones replaced them upon serious
occasions. This was their house wear; in the street they
contented themselves with their plain basquines ; and I think
if anybody missed the bunches and festoons, it was only as
Frank Sunderline said, with an unexplained impression of
the absence of a * snarl.'

'There's one thing certain,' put in Mrs. Ingraham.
'Women can't be dolls and live women too. I don't ever
want anything on thatll hender me from goin' right into
whatever there is 'to be gone into. It's cloe's tliat makes all
the diffikelty nowadays. Young women can't do housework
because of their cloe's ; 'tisn't because they ain't as strong as
their grandmothers; their grandmothers didn't try to wear
a load and move one too. Folks that live a little nicer than
common, and keep girls, don't have more than five hours to
their day ; the rest of the time tjjey^e dressed up ; and that
means tied up. They can't see to their girls ; they grow help-
lesser all the time, and the help grows sozzlier; and so it
comes to sauciness, and upstrupperousness, and changes ;
and there's an up-stairs and a down-stairs to every house, and
no home anywhere. That's how it is, and how it must be,
till women take down some of their furbelows and live real,
and keep house, and take old-fashioned comfort in it. Why,
the help has to get into their humpty-dumpties by three or
four o'clock, and see their company. If there's sickness or
anything, that they can't, they're up a tree and off. I've
known of folks breakin' up and goin' to board, because they
were afraid of sickness ; they knew their girls would clear
right out if there was gruel to make and waitin' up and down
to do. There ain't much left to depend on but hotels and
hospitals. Home is too big a worry. And I do believe, my
soul, its cloe's that's at the bottom of it. It's been growin'
wuss and wuss ever since tight waists and holler biasses came
in, and that's five and twenty years ago.'

Mrs. Ingraham grew more Yankee in her dialect, — as the
Scotch grow more Scotch, — with warming up to the subject.

Sunderline laughed.

' Well, I must go,' he said ; ' though you do look so bright

ISO TME OTHER GIRLS

and cosy here. Half past seven's the last train, and there's a
little job at home I promised mother I'd do to-night. I've
been so busy lately that I haven't had any hammer and nails
of my own. Ray ! '

He had come round behind her chair, where she had
seated herself at her sewing.

* It's pleasant out of town these fall days ; and I want you
to see my house before I give it over. If I come for you
to-morrow, will you ride out with me to Pomantic ? '

Ray felt half a dozen things at that i^ioment between his
question and her reply. She felt her mother's eyes just lifted
at her, without another movement, over the silver rims of her
spectacles ; she felt Dot's utter stillness ; she felt her own
heart spring with a single quick beat, and her cheeks grow
warm, and a moisture at her fingers' ends as they held work
and needle determinedly, and she set two or three stitches
with instinctive resolution of not stopping. She felt, inwardly,
the certainty that this would count for much in Mrs. Ingra-
ham's plain, old-fashioned way of judging things ; she was
afraid of a misjudgment for Frank Sunderline, if he did not,
perhaps, mean anything particular by it ; she would have
refused him ten times over, and let the refusal rest with her,
sooner than have him blamed ; for what business had she,
after all, —

' Well, Ray ?'

She felt his hand upon the back of her chair, close to her
shoulder ; she felt that he leaned down a little. She heard
something in that * Well, Ray,' that she could not turn aside,
though in an hour afterwards she would be taking herself to
task that she had let it seem like ' anything.'

* I was thinking,' she said, quietly. * Yes, I think I could
go. Thank you, Frank.'

Frank Sunderline was not sure, as he walked up Roulston
Street afterwards, whether Ray cared much. She made it
seem all matter of course, in a minute, with that calm,
deliberate answer of hers. And she sat so still, and let him
go out of the room with hardly another word or look. She
never stopped sewing, either.

Well, — he 4id not see those ten stitches ! He might not

BONNY BOWLS. 151

fcave been the wiser if he had. They were not carpenter-
work.

But Ray knew better than to pick them out, while her
mother and Dot were by.

That next day was made for them.

Days are made for separate people, though they shine or
storm over so many. Or the people are drifted into the
right days ; what is the difference 1

I must stop for the thought here, that has to do with this
question of rain and shine, — with need, and asking, and
giving.

Prayers and special providences ! Are these thrust out of
the scheme, because there is a scheme, and a steadfastness
of administration in God's laws ? * No use to pray for rain,
or the calming of the storm, or a blessing on the medicine ? '
When it was all set going, was not \}ci& prayer provided for ?
It was answered a million of years beforehand, in the heart
of God, who put it into your heart and nature to pray. Long
before the want or the sin, the beseeching for help or for
forgiveness was anticipated ; provision was made for the
undoing or the counteracting of the evil, — the healing of the
wrong, — just as it should be longed for in the needing and
repenting soul. The more law you have, the more all things
■come under its foresight.

So, under the dear Law, — which is Love, and cares for the
sparrow, — came the fair October day, with its unflecked fir-
mament, its golden, conquering wannth, its richness of scent
and colour ; and they two went forth in it.

They went early, after dinner; so that the brightness
might last them home again ; and because the Newriches,
in their afternoon drive, might be coming out from the city,
perhaps, a little later, to look at their waistcoat-pocket play-
thing.

Mrs. Ingraham turned away from the basement window
with a long breath, as they drove off.

* Well, I suppose thafs settled,' she said, with the mothers-
sadness, in the midst of the not wishing it by any means to
be otherwise, inflecting her voice.

' I don't believe Ray thinks so,' said Dot.

In some of the hundred little indirect ways that girls find

152 THE OTHER GIRLS

the use of, Ray had managed to really impose this impression
upon the sturdy mind of Dot, without discussion. If Dot
had had the least bit of experience of her own, as yet, she
would not have been imposed upon. But Mrs. Ingraham
had great reliance on Dorothy's common sense, and she left
no lee- way for uninitiation.

^ Do you really mean to say, child,' she asked, turning:
round sharply, " that Ray don't suppose, — or don't want, —
or don't intend— ? She's a goose if she don't, then; and
they're both geese ; and I shouldn't have any patience with
'em ! And that's my mind about it ! '

It is not such a very beautiful drive straight out to Poman-
tic over the Roxeter road. There are more attractive ones
in many directions. But no drive out of Boston is destitute
of beauty ; and even the long turnpike stretches — they are
turnpike stretches still, though the Pike is turned into an
Avenue, and built all along with blocks of little houses,^
exactly alike, in those places where used to be the flat, un-
occupied intervals between the scattered suburban residences
— have their breaks of hill and orchard and garden, and
their glimpses, across the marshes, of the sea.

Ray enjoyed eveiy bit of it, — even the rows of new tene-
ments with their wooden door-steps, and their disproportion-
ate Mansard roofs that make them all look like the picture
in ' Mother Goose,' of the boy under a big hat that might be
slid down over him and just cover him up.

The rhyme itself came into Ray's head, and she said it to*
her companion.

• Little lad, little lad, where were you bom?
Far off in Lancashire, under a thorn.
Where they sup buttermilk from a ram's horn ;
And a pumpkin scooped, with a yellow rim,
Is the bonny bowl they breakfast in.'

* Those houses make me think of that,' she said ; * and the
picture over it— do you remember ? '

Everybody remembers *■ Mother Goose.' You can't quote
or remind amiss from her.

' To be sure,' Frank answered, laughing. ' And the his-
tories and the lives there carry out the idea. They all came
from Lancashire, or somewhere across the big sea, and they^

BONNY BO WLS. 155

were all bom under the thorn, pretty much, — of poverty and
pinches. But they sup their buttermilk, and the bowl is
bonny, if it is only a pumpkin rind. Isn't that rhyme just
the perfection of the glorifying of common things by
imagination?'

^ It always seems to me that living might be pretty in such,
places. iUl just alike, and snug together. I should think
Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Mrs. Mahoney would have beautiful
little ambitions and rivalries about their tidy parlours and
kitchens, setting up housekeeping side by side, as they do. I
should think they might have much nice neighbourliness,,
back and forth. It looks full of all possible pleasantness ;
like the cottage quarters of the army families, down at Fort
Warren, that you see so white and pretty among the trees, as
you go by in the steamboat.'

*Only they don't make it out,' said Frank Sunderline,.
* after all. The prettiest part of it is going by in the steam-
boat. Here, I mean. The "Mother Goose" idea is very
suggestive ; but if you went through that block, from be-
ginning to end, I wonder how many " bonny bowls " you
would really find, that you'd be willing to breakfast out of?'

*I wonder how many bonny bowls there'll be, one of these
days, in the cook's closet of the grand house we're going to ?'
said Ray.

* That's it,' said Sunderline. * It's pretty to build, and it's
pretty to look at ; but I should like to hear what your mother
would say to the ** conveniences." One convenience wants
another to take care of it, till there's such a compound
interest of them that it takes a regiment just to man the pumps
and pipes, and open and shut the cupboards. Living doesn't
really need so much machinery. But every household seems
to want a little universe of its own, nowadays.'

^ I suppose they make it wrong side out,' said Ray. ' I
mean all outside.'

Further on, along the bay shores, and across the long
bridge, and reaching over crests of hills that gave beautiful
pictures of land and waterscape, the way was pleasanter and
pleasanter. Other and dififerent homesteads were set along
the route, suggesting endless imaginations of the different
character and living of the dwellers. More than once,,

154 THE OTHER GIRLS

either Ray or Frank was on the point of saying^ as they
passed some modest, pretty structure, with its field and
garden-piece, its piazza, porch, or balcony, and its sunny
windows, — ' There \ that is a nice place and way to live ! '

But a young man and woman are shy of sharing such
imaginations, before the sharing is quite understood and
openly promised. So, many times a silence fell upon their
casual talk, when the same thing was in the thought of each.

For miles before they came to it, the sightly Newrich
edifice gave itself, in different aspects, to the view. Mr. New-
rich, himself, never saw anything else in his drives out, of
sky, or hill, or water, after the first glimpse of *my house,'
and the way it ^ showed up ' in the approach.

Men were busy wheeling away rubbish, as they drove in
between the great stone posts that marked the entrance,
where the the elegant, light-wrought, gilded iron were not yet
hung.

Other labourers were rolling the lawn and terraces, newly
sown with English grass seed that was to come up in the
spring, and begin to weave its green velvet carpet Piles of
bricks and boards were gathered at the back of the house
and about the stables.

The plate-glass windows glittered in the sun. The tiled-
roofs, with their towers and slopes, looked like those in pic-
tures of palace buildings. It was a group, — ^a pile ; under
these roofs a family of five — Americans, republicans, with no
law of primogeniture to conserve the estate beyond a single
lifetime — were to live like a little royal household. And the
father had made all his money in fifteen years in Opal Street.
This country of ours, and the ways of it, are certainly pretty
nearly the queerest under the sun, when one looks it all through
and tibinks it all over.

Frank Sunderline pointed out the lovely work of the pillars
in the porched veranda ; every pillar a triple column, of the
slenderest grace, capitaled with separate devices of leaf and
flower.

Then they went into the wide, high hall, and through the
lower rooms, floored and ceiled and walled most richly ; and
up over the stately staircase, copied from some grand old
English architectiu-e ; along the galleries into the wings.

BONNY BOWLS 155

where were the sleeping and dressing-rooms ; up-stairs, again,
into other sleeping-rooms, — places for the many servants that
there must be, — ^press-rooms, closets, trunk-rooms, — space
for stowing all the ample providings for use and change
from season to season. Every frame and wainscot and
panel a study of colour and exact workmanship and perfect
finish.

It was a ' show house ; ' that was just what it was. * And
I can't imagine the least bit of home-iness in the whole of it,'
said Ray, coming down from the high cupola whence they
had looked far out to sea, and over inland, upon blue hills
and distant woods.

They stopped half way, — on the wide second landing where
they had seen, as they went up, that the great window space
was op^n ; the boards that had temporarily covered it having
been removed, and the costly panes and sashes that were to
fill it resting against the wall at one side.

* That is the greatest piece of nonsense in the whole house,'
Sunderline had said. 'A crack in that, would be the spoiling
of a thousand dollars.'

' How very silly,' said Ray, quietly. ' It is only fit for a
church or a chapel.'

' It shuts out the stables,' said SunderUne. * Take care of
that open frame,' he had ^dded, cautioning her.

Now, coming down, he stopped right here, and stood still
with his back to the opening, looking across the front hall at
some imperfection he fancied he detected in the joining of a
carved cornice. Ray stood on the staircase, a Uttle way up,
facing the gorgeous window, and studying its glow of colour.

*It won't do. The meeting of the pattern isn't perfect.
Those grape-bunches come too near together, and there's a
leaf-tip taken off at the corner. What a bungle ! Come
and look, Ray.'

Kay turned her face towards him as he spoke, and saw
what thrilled her through with sudden horror. Saw him,
utterly forgetful^ of where he stood, against the dangerous
vacancy, his heel upon the very edge, beyond which would
be death !

A single movement an inch further, and he would be off
his balance. Behind him was a fall of thirty feet, down to

156 THE OTHER GIRLS

those piles of brick and timber. And he would make the
movement unless he were instantly snatched away. His
head was thrown back, — his shoulders leaned backward, in
the attitude of one who is endeavouring to judge of an effect
a little distance off.

Her face turned white, and her limbs quivered under her.

One gasping breath — and then — she turned, made two steps
upward, and flung herself suddenly, as by mischance, pros-
trate along the broad, slowly-sloping stairs.

Half a dozen thoughts, in flashing succession, shaped them-
selves with and into the action. She wondered, afterwards,
recollecting them in a distinct order, how there had been
time, and how she had thought so fast

* I must not scream. I must not move towards him. I
must make him come this way.'

In the two steps up — ' He might not follow; he would not
understand. He must : I must make him come ! ' And then
she flung herself down, as if she had fallen.

Once down, her strength went from her as she lay; she
turned really faint and helpless.

It was all over. He was beside her.

* What is the matter, Ray ? Are you ill ? Are you hurt ? '
he said quickly, stooping down to lift her up. She sat up,
then, on the stair. She could not stand.

A man's step came rapidly through the lower hall, ringing
upon the solid floor, and sounding through the unfurnished
house.

*Sunderline! Thank heaven, sir, you're safe! Do you
know how near you were to backing out of that confounded
window ? I sa,w you from the outside. In the name of good-
ness, have that place boarded up again ! It shouldn't be left
for five minutes.'

* Was that it?' asked Frank, still bending over Ray, while
Mr. Newrich said all this as he hurried up the stairs.

* I didn't fall, I tumbled down on purpose ! It was the only
thing I could think of,' said Ray, nervously smiling ; justify-
ing herself, instinctively, from the betrayal of a feeling that
makes girls faint away in novels. * I felt weak afterwards.
Anybody would.'

* That's a fact,' said Mr. Newrich, stopping at the landing.

BONNY BOWLS 157

and glancing out through the aperture. ' I shall never think
of it, without shivering. You were as good as gone : a hair's
breadth more would have done it. God bless my soul I If
my place had had such a christening as that ! '

The whiteness came over Ray Ingraham's face again. She
was just rising to her feet, with her hand upon the rail.

' Sit still,' said Frank. * Let me go and bring you some
water.'

' She'll feel better to be by herself a minute or two, I dare
say,' said Mr. Newrich, following Frank as he went down.
He had the tact to think of this, but not to go without saying
it.

' A quick-witted young woman,' he remarked, as they passed
out of lier hearing. 'And sensible enough to keep her wits
ahead of her feelings. If she had come at you, as half the
women in the world would have done, you'd be a dead man
this minute. Your sister, Sunderline ? '

* No, sir ; only a friend.'

*• Ah ! onlier than a sister, may be ? Well ! '

Sunderline replied nothing, beyond a look.

' I beg your pardon. It's none of my business.'

' It's none of my business, so far as I know,' said Frank.
* If it were, there would be no pardon to beg.'

'You're a fine fellow; and she's a fine girL I suppose I
may say that. I tell you what; if you had come to grief, at
the very end of this job you've done so well for me, I believe
I should have put the place under the hammer. I couldn't
have begun with such a piece of Friday luck as that ! '

There were long pauses between the talk, as Ray and
Frank drove back together into the city.

' Ray 1 ' Frank said at last, suddenly, just as they came
opposite to the row of little brown big-hatted houses, where
they had talked about the bonny bowls, — ' My life is either
worth more or less to me, after this. You are the only woman
in the world I could like to owe it to. Will you take what
I owe? Will you be the onliest woman in the world to
me?'

Oddly enough, that word of Mr. Newrich's, that had half
affronted him, came up to his lips involuntarily and unex-
pectedly, now. Words are apt to come up so — in a sort of

158 THE OTHER GIRLS

spite of us — that have made dn impression, even when it has
been that of simple misuse.

Ray did not answer. She felt it quite impossible to speak.

Frank waited — three minutes perhaps. Then he said,

* Tell me, Ray. If it is to be no, let me know it'

*If it had been no, I could have said it sooner,' Ray
answered, softly.

' May I come back?' he asked, when he helped her down
at the door in Pilgrim Street, and held her hand fast for
a minute.

* O yes ; come back and see mother,' Ray replied, her fece
all beautiful with smile and colour.

Mother knew all the story, that minute, as well as when
it was told her afterwards. She saw her child's face, and that
holding of the hand, from her upper window, where a half
blind had fallen to. Mothers do not miss the home-comings
from such drives as that

' There's one thing, Frank,' — said Ray. She was standing
with him, three hours afterwards, at the low step of the
entrance, he above her on the sidewalk, looking down upon
her upturned face. The happy tea and family evening were
over ; that first family evening, when one comes acknowledged
in, who has been almost one of the femily before ; and they
were saying the first beautiful good-by, which has the
beginning of all joining and belonging in it. 'There is one
thing, Frank. I'm under contract for the present ; for quite
a while. I'm going into the bread business, after alL I've
promised Miss Grapp to take her bakery, and manage it for
her, for a year or so.'

'Who — is — Miss Grapp?' exclaimed Frank, pausing
between the words in his astonishment

Ray laughed. * Haven't I told you ? I thought everybody
knew. If s too long a story for tiie door-step. When you
come again' —

'ThatOl be to-morrow.'

< 111 teU you all about it'

* Youll have to manage the bakery and me too, somehow,
before-— a " year or so ! " How long do you suppose I expect
to wait?'

BONNY BOWLS 159

' Dear me ! how long have you waited V returned Ray,
demurely.

She only meant the three hours since they had been
engaged ; but it is a funny fact about the nature and prero-
gative of a man, that he may take years in which to come to
the point of asking— years in which perhaps a woman's life
is waiting, with a wear and an uncertainty in it ; but the
point oi having must be moved up then, to suit his sudden
impatience of full purpose.

A woman shrinks from this hurry ; she wants a Uttle of the
blessed time of sure anticipation, after she knows that they
belong to one another ; a time to dream and plan beautiful
things together in ; to let herself think, safely and rightly, all
the thoughts she has had to keep down until now. It is the
difference of attitude in the asking and answering relations ;
a man's thoughts have been free enough all along ; he has
dreamt his dream out, and stands claiming the fulfilment.

Dot had her hair all down that night, and her night-gown
on, and was sitting on the bed, with her feet curled up, while
Ray stood in skirts and dressing-sack, before the glass, her
braids half unfastened, stock-still, looking in at herself, or
through her own image, with a most intent oblivion of what
she pretended to be there for.

* Well, Ray ! Have you forgotten the way to the other side
of your head, or are you enchanted for a hundred years ? I
shall want the glass to-morrow morning.'

Ray roused up from her abstraction.

' I was thinking,' she said.

' Yes'm. I suppose you'll be always thinking now. You
had just outgrown that trick, a little. It was the affliction of
my childhood ; and now it's- got to begin again. "Don't talk
Dot; I'm thinking." Good-by.'

There was half a whimper in Dorothy's last word,

^Dot ! You silly litde thing I'

And Rachel came over to the bedside, and put her arms
round Dorothy, all cnmipled as she was into a little round
white ball.

^ I was thinking about Marion Kent'

l6o THE OTHER GIBLS

CHAPTER XVI.

RECOMPENSE.

That night, Marion Kent was fifty miles off, in the great,
inixed-up, manufacturing town of Loweburg.

She had three platform dresses now, — the earnings of
^ome half-dozen ' evenings.' The sea-green silk woidd not
•do for ever, in place after place ; they would call her the
mermaid. She must have a quiet, elegant black one, and
one the colour of her hair, like that she had seen the pretty
actress, Alice Craike, so bewitching in. She could deepen
it with chestnut trimmings, all toning up together to one
rich, bright harmony. Her hair was ' blond cendri^ — not
the red-golden of Alice Craike's ; but the same subtle rule
of art was available ; * cafd-au-laW was her shade ; and the
darker velvet just deepened and emphasized the effect

She was putting this dress on to-night, with some brown
and golden leaves in the high, massed braids of her hair.
She certainly knew how to make a picture of herself; she
was just made to make a picture of.

The hotel waitress who had brought up her tea on a tray
liad gone down with the report that Miss Kent was
* stunning ; ' and two or three housemaids and a number of
little boys were vibrating and loitering about the hall and
doorway below, watching for her to come down to her
carriage. It was just as good, so far as these things went,
as if she had been Mrs. Kemble, or Christine Nilsson, or
anybody.

And Marion, poor child, had really got no farther than
^ these things,' yet. She reached, for herself, to just what
she had been able to aj^reciate in others. She had taken
in the housemaid and small-boy view of famousness, and
she was having her shallow little day of living it. She had
not found out, yet, how short a time that would last.
•* Verily,' it was said for us all long ago, ' ye shall have each
your reward,' such as ye look and labour for.

RECOMPENSE i6r

One great boy was waiting for her, ex officio^ and without
disguise, — the President of the Lyceum Club, before which
she was to read to-night.

He sat serenely in the reception-room, ready to hand her
to her carriage, and accompany her to the hall.

The little boys observed him with exasperation. The
housemaids dropped their lower jaws with wonder, when she
swept down the staircase ; her cafi-au-lait silk rolling and
glittering behind her, as if the breakfast for all Loweburg
were pouring down the Phoenix Hotel stairs.

The President of the People's Lyceum Club heard the
rustle of elegance, and met her at the stair-foot with bowing
head ^d bended arm.

That was a beautiful, triumphant moment, in ,which she
crossed the space between the staircase and the door, and
went down over the sidewalk to the hack. What would you
have ? There could not have been more of it, in her mind,
though all Loweburg were standing by. She was Miss
Kent, going out to give her Reading. What more could
Fanny Kemble do ?

Around the hall doors, when they arrived, other great
boys were gathered She was passed in quickly, to the left,
through some passages and committee rooms, to the other
end of the building, whence she would enter, in full glory,
upon the platform.

She came in gracefully ; a little breezy she could not help
being ; it was the one naovement of the imiverse to her at
that moment, her ten steps across the platform, — her little
half bow, half droop, before the applauding audience,— the
taking up of the bouquet laid upon her table, — her smile,
with a scarcely visible inclination again, — and the sitting
down among those waves of amber that rose up shining in
the gas-light, about her, as she subsided among her silken
draperies.

She was imitative ; she had learned the little outsides of
her art well ; but you see the art was not high.

It was the same with her reading. She \yaA had drill
enough to make her elocution passable ; her voice was clear
and sweet ; she had a natural knack, as we have seen, for
speaking to the galleries. When there was a sensational,

i62 THE OTHER GIRLS

dramatic point to make^ she could make it, after her external
fashion, strongly. The deep magnetism — ^the electric thrill
of soul-reality — these she had nothing to do with.

Yet she read some things that thrilled of themselves ; the
very words of which, uttered almost anyhow, were fit to
bring men to their feet and women to tears, with sublimity
and pathos. Somebody had helped her choose effectively,
and things very cunningly adaptive to herself.

The last selection for the first part of her reading to-night
was Mrs. Browning's * Court Lady.'

'Wear your fawn-coloured silk when you read this/
Virginia Levering had counselled.

Her self-consciousness made the first lines telling.

' Her hair was tawny with gold, — ^her eyes with purple were dark ;
Her cheeks pale opal burned with a red and restless spark.'

Her head, bright with its golden-dusty waves and braids,
leaned forward under the light as she uttered the words ;
her great, gray-blue eyes, deepening wtih excitement to
black, lifted themselves and looked the crowd in the face ;
the colour mounted like a crimson spark ; she glowed aU
over. Yes, over ; not up, nor through ; but some things
catch from the outside. A flush and rustle ran over the
faces, and the benches ; she felt that every eye was upon
her, lit up with an admiring eagerness, that answered to her
eagerness to be admired.

O, this was living ! There was a pulse and a rush in tbis !
Marion Kent wa^ living, with all her nature that had yet
waked up, at that bewildering and superficial moment.

But she has got to live deeper. The Lord, who gave her
life, will not let her off so. It will come. It is coming.

We know not the day nor the hour; though we go on as if
we knew all things and were sure.

At this very instant, there is close upon you, Marion Kent,
one of those lightning shafts that run continually quivering
to and fro about the earth, with their net- work of fire, in this
storm of life under which we of to-day are bom. All the air
is tremulous with quick, converging nerves ; concentrating
events, bringing each soul, as it were, into a possible focus
continually, under the forces that are foiging to bear down

. RECOMPENSE 163

upon it. There are no delays, — no respites of ignorance.

Right into the midst of our most careless or most selfish

doing, comes the smnmons that arrests us in the Name of the

King.

' She rose to her feet with a spring.
That was a Piedmontese I And this is the Court of the King ! '

She was upon her feet, as if the impulse of the words had
lifted her ; she had learned by rote and practice when and
how to do it ; she had been poised for the action through the
reading of all those last stanzas.

She did it well. One hand rested by the finger-tips upon
the open volume before her ; her glistening robes fell back
as she gained her full height, — she swayed forwards towards
the assembly that leaned itself towards her ; the left hand
threw itself back with a noble gesture of generous declaring ;
the fingers curving from the open palm, as it might have
been towards the pallet of the dead soldier at her side. She
was utterly motionless for an instant ; then, as the applause
broke dpwn the silence, she turned, and grandly passed out
along the stage, and disappeared.

Within the door of the ante-room stood a messenger from
the hotel. He had a telegraph envelope in his hand ; he put
it into hers.

She tore it open, — not thinking, scarcely noticing ; the
excitement of the instant just past moved her nerves, — ^no
apprehension of what this might be.

Then the lightning reached her ; struck her through and
through.

' Your ma's dying ; come back ; no money.'

Those last words were a mistake : the whole despatch, in
its absurd homeliness and its pitiless directness, was the
work of old Mrs. Knoxwell, the blacksmith's wife, used to
hammers and nails, and believing in good, forceful, honest
ways of doing things ; feeling also a righteous and neigh-
bourly indignation against this child, negligent of her worn
and lonely mother; ' skitin' about, the country, makin' believe
big and famous. She would let her know the truth, right
out plain ; it would be good for her.'

What she had meant to write at the end was 'Pneumonia;'

M 3

i64 THE OTHER GIRLS

but spelling it ' Numoney/ it had got transmitted as we have
seen.

It struck Marion through and through ; but she did not
ffeel it at first. It met the tide of her triumph and elation
full in her throbbing veins ; and the two keen currents turned
to a mere stillness for a moment.

Then she dropped down where she was, all into the golden
mass and shine of her bright raiment, with her hands before
her eyes, the paper crumpled in the clinch of one of them.

The President of the People's Lyceum Club made a little
speech, and dismissed the audience. * Miss Kent had re-
ceived by telegraph most painful inteUigence from her
family ; was utterly unable to appear again.'

The audience behaved as an American People's Club
knows so well how to behave ; dispersed quietly, without a
grumble, or a recollection of the half value of the tickets
lost. Miss Kent's carriage drove rapidly from a side door.
In two hours she was on board the night train down from
Vermont.

That was on Friday night

On Sunday morning Frank Sunderhne came in on the
service train, and went up to Pilgrim Street.

* Mrs. Kent is dead,' he told Ray. ' Marion is in awful
trouble. Can't you come out to her ? '

Ray was just leaving the house to go to church. Instead,
she went with Frank to the horse-railroad station, catching
the eleven o'clock car. She had been expecting him in the
afternoon, to take her to drink tea with his mother, who was
not able to come in to see her.

In an hour she went in at Mrs. Kent's white gate, — Frank
leaving her there. They both felt, without saying, that it
would not be kind to appear together. Marion had that
news, though, as she had had the other ; from her Job's com-
forter, Mrs. Knoxwell, who was persistently * sitting with her.'

* There's Frank Sunderline and Ray Ingraham at the gate.
She's coming in. They're engaged. It's just out.'

'What do I care?' cried Marion, fiercely, turning upon,
her, and astounding Mrs. Knoxwell by the sudden burst of
angry words ; for she had not spoken for more than an hour^
in which the blacksmith's wife had administered occasional

RECOMPENSE 165

appropriate sentences of stinging condolence and well-meant
retrospection. * I wish you would go home ! '

Every monosyllable was uttered with a desperate, wrath-
ful deliberateness and flinging away of all pretence and
politeness.

'Well — 'f I never P gasped Mrs, Knoxwell, with a sound
in her voice as if she had received a blow in the pit of her
stomach.

* Jest as you please, Marion — ^'f I ain't no more use ! '
And the aggrieved matron, who had, as she said afterwards
in recounting it, *done everything^ left the scene of her
labours and her animadversions, with a face perfectly emptied
of all expression by her inabiUty to * realise what she did
feel.'

Ray Ingranam came in, went straight up to Marion, and
took her into her arms without a word. And Marion put
her head down on Ray's shoulder, and cried her very heart
out.

'You needn't try to comfort me. I can't be comforted
like anybody else. It's the day of judgment come down into
my life. I've sold my birthright : I've nobody belonging to
me any more. I wanted the world — to be free in it ; and
I'm turned out into it now ; and home's gone — and mother !

* I never thought of her dying. I expected one of these
days to do for her, and not let her work any more. I meant
to, Ray — I did, truly ! But she's dead — and I let her die ! '

With sentences like these, Marion broke out now and
again, putting a^ide all Ray's consolations ; going back con-
tinually to her self-upbraidings, after every pause in which
Ray had let her rest or cry quietly ; after every word with
which she tried to prevail against her despair and soothe her
with some hope or promise.

* They are none of them for me ! * she cried. ' It would
have been better if I had never been bom. Ray ! ' she said
suddenly, in a strained, hollow voice, grasping Rachel's arm
and looldng with wild, swollen eyes into hers,— * I was just
as bad by little Sue. I was only fourteen then, but it was
the same evil, unsuitable vanity and selfishness. I was busy,
while she was sick, making a white muslin burnouse to wear
at a fair. I had teased mother for it. It was a silly thing

i66 THE OTHER GIRLS

for a girl like me to wear ; it had a blue ribbon run in the
hem of the hood, and a bow and long blue ends behind. Poor
little Sue was just down with the fever. Mother had to go
out, and left me to tend her. She wanted some water — O ! ^

Marion broke down, and sobbed, with her head bowed ta
her knees as she sat.

Ray sat perfectly still. She longed to beg her not to think
about it, not to say any more ; but she knew she would f^et
better if she did.

* I told her I'd go presently ; and she waited— the patient
little thing ! And I was making my blue bow, and fixing it .
on, and fussing with the running, and I forgot ! And she-
couldn't bear to bother me, and didn't say a word, but waited
till she dropped to sleep without it ; and her lips were so red
and dry. It was a whole hour that I let her lie so. She-
never knew anything after that.

* She waked up all in a rave of light-headedness !

* I thought I should never get over it, Ray. And I never
did, way down in my heart ; but I got back into the same-
wretched nonsense, and now — here's mother/

* It's no use to tell me. I've done it. I've lost my right.
It'll never be given back to me.'

' Marion — I wish you could have Mr. Vireo to talk to you ;.
or Luclarion Grapp. Won't you come home with me, and
let them come to see you } They know about these things,,
dear.'

' Would you take me home ? ' asked Marion, slowly, look-
ing her in the face.

' Yes, indeed. Will you come ? '

' O, do take me and hide me away, and let me cry ! '

She dropped herself, as it were passively, into Rachel In-
graham's hands. She could not stay among the neighbours,,
she said. She could not stay in that house alone, one day.

Ray stayed with her until after the funeral.

Marion would not go to the church. She had let them
decide everything just as they pleased, thinking only that
she could not think about any of it. Mrs. Kent had been a
faithful, humble church-member for forty years, and the-
minister and her fellow-members wanted her to be brought
there. There was no room in the little half-house, where she-

RECOMPENSE 167

had lived, for neighbours and friends to gather, and for the
services properly to take place.

So it was decided.

But when the time came, and it was too late to change,
Marion said, — * She belonged to them, and they have done
by her. They can all go, but I can't. To sit up in the front
pew as a mourner, and be looked at, and prayed for, as if I
had been a real child, and had only lost my mother ! You
know I can't, Ray. I will stay here and bear my punish-
ment. May be if I bear it all now — do you believe it might
make any difference ? '

Ray stayed with her through the whole.

While aU was still in the church, not ten rods off, a carriage
came up for them to the little white gate. With the silken
blinds down, and the windows open behind them, it was
driven to the cemetery, and in beneath the sheltering trees,
to a stopping place just upon a little side turn, near the newly
opened grave. No one, of those who alighted from the ve-
hicles of the short procession, knew exactly when or how it -
had come.

The words of the prayer beside the grave, — most tenderly
framed by the good old minister, for the ear he knew they
would reach — came in soft and clear upon the pleasant air.

' And we know. Lord, as we lay these friends away, one
after another, that we give them into Thy hands, — into Thy
heart ; that we give into Thy heart, also, all our love and our
sorrow, and our penitence for whatever more we might have
been or done towards them ; that through Thee, our thought
of them can reach them for ever. We pray Thee to forgive
us, as we know we do forgive each other ; to keep alive and
true in us the love by which we hold each other ; and finally
to bring us face to face in Thy glory, which is Thy loving
presence among us all. We ask Thee to do this, by the pity
and grace that are in Thy Christ, our Saviour.'

After that, they were driven straight in, over the long
Avenue, to the city, and to the quiet house in Pilgrim Street.
Ray herself, only, led Marion to the little room up-stairs
which had been made ready for her ; Ray brought her up
some tea, and made her drink it ; she saw her in bed for the
night, and sat by her till she fell asleep.

l68 THE OTHER GIRLS

CHAPTER XVII.

ERRANDS OF HOPE.

• It is a very small world, after all,'

Mr. Dickens, who touched the springs of the whole world's
life, and moved all its hearts with tears and laughter, said so ;
and we find it out, each in our own story, or in any story that
we know of or try to tell. How things come round and join
each other again, — how this that we do, brings us face to
face with that which we have done, and with its work and
consequence ; how people find each other after years and
years, and find that they have not been very far apart after
all; how the old combinations return, and almost repeat
themselves, when we had thought that they were done with.

* As the doves fly to their windows,' where the crumbs are
waiting for them, we find ourselves borne by we know not
what instinct of events, — yet we do know ; for it is just the
purpose of God, as all instinct is, — towards these conjunctions
and recurrences. We can see at the end of weeks, or months,
or years, how in some Hand the lines must all have been
gathered, and made to lead and draw to the coincidence.
We call it fate, sometimes ; stopping short, either blindly in-
apprehensive of the larger and surer blessedness, or too shyly
reverent of what we believe to say it easily out. Yet when
we read it in a written story, we call it the contrivance of the
writer, — the trick of the trade. Dearly beloved, the writer
only catches, in such poor fashion as he may, the trick of the
Finger, whose scripture is upon the stars.

Marion Kent is received into the Ingraham home. Hilary
Vireo and Luclarion Grapp preach the gospel to her.

* Christ died.'

The minister uttered his evangel of mercy in those two
eternal words.

* Yes, — Christ,' murmured the girl, who had never ques-
tioned about such things before, and to whose lips the holy
name had been strange, unsuitable, impossible ; but whose

ERRANDS OF HOPE 169

soul, smitten with its sin and need, broke through the
wretched outward hinderance now, and had to cry up after
the only Hope.

* But he could not forgive my letting them die. I have
been reading the New Testament, Mr. Vireo, " Whosoever
shall offend one of these little ones, it were better for him
that a millstone " ' —

She could not finish the quotation.

'Yes, — ^^ offend f turn aside out of the right — away from
Him ; mislead. Hurt their j^«/j, Marion.'

Marion gave a grasping look into his face. Her eyes
seized the comfort, — snatched it with a starving madness out
of his.

* Do you think it means that? ' she said.

* I do. I know the word ^ offend " means simply to *' turn
away." We may sin against each other's outward good,
•grievously ; we may lay up lives full of regrets to bear ; we
may hurt, we may Idll ; and then we must repent according
to our sin ; but we may repent, and they and He will
pity. It is the soul-killers — the corrupters — Christ so terribly
condemns.'

' But listen to me, Marion,' he began again. ' God let his
Christ die — suffer— for the whole world. Christ lets them
"whom he counts worthy, die — suffer — for their world. The
Lamb is for ever slain ; th« sacrifice of the holy is for ever
making. It is so that they come to walk in white with Him ;
because they have washed their robes in his blood — have
partaken of his sacrifice. Do you not think they are glad
now, with his joy, to have given themselves for you ; if it
brings you back ? " If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto
me." He who knew how to lay hold of the one great heart of
humanity by a divine act, knows how to give his own work
to those who can draw the single cords, and save with love
the single souls. They must suffer, that they may also reign
with Him. It is his gift to them and to you. Will you take
your part of it, and make theirs perfect ? " Let not your
lieart be troubled ; ye believe in God, believe also in me. Ye
believe in me, believe also in these." '

' But I want to come where they are. I want to love and
do for them ; do something for tJiem in heaven^ Mr. Vireo

I70 THE OTHER GIRLS

that I did not do here ! Can I ever have my chances given
back again ? '

' You have them now. Go and do something for " the
least of these." That is how we work for our Christs who
have been lifted up. Do their errands ; enter into the sacrifice
with them ; be a link yourself in the divine chain, and feel
the joy and the life of it. The moment you give yourself^
you shall feel that. You shall know that you are joined
to them. You need not wait to go to heaven. You can be
in heaven.'

He left her with that to think of ; left her with a new
peace in her eyes. She looked round that hour for something
to do.

She went up into old Mrs. Rhynde's room. She knew Ray
and Dot were busy. She found the old lady's knitting work
all in a snarl ; stitches dropped and twisted.

Some coals had rolled out upon the hearth, and the sun
had got round so as to strike across her where she sat.

The grandmother was waiting patiently, closing her eyes,
and resting them, letting the warm sun lie upon her folded
hands like a friend's touch. One of the girls would be up
soon.

Marion came in softly, brushed up the hearth, laid the
sticks and embers together, made the fire-place bright. She
changed the blinds ; lowered one, raised another ; kept the
sunshine in the room, but shielded away the dazzle that shot
between face and fingers. She left the shade with careful
note, just where it let the warm beam in upon those quiet
hands. Some instinct told her not to come between them
and that heavenly enfolding.

She took the knitting work and straightened it; raveled
down, and picked up, and with nimble stitches restored the
lost rows.

Mrs. Rhynde looked up at her and smiled.

Then she offered to read. She had not read a word aloud
from a printed page since that night in Loweburg.

The old lady wanted a hynm. Marion read ' He leadeth
me.' The book opened of itself to that place. She rpad it
as one whose soul went searching into the words to find what
was in them, and bring it forth. Of Marion Kent, sitting

ERRANDS OF HOPE 17.1

in the chair with the book in her hand, she thought — she
remembered — ^nothing. Her spirit went from out of her, into
spiritual places. So she followed the words with her voice,
as one really reading; interpreting as she went. All her
elocution had taught her nothing like this before. It had not
touched the secret of the instant receiving and giving again ;
it had only been the trick of saying out, which is no giving^
at all.

* Thank you, dear,' said the soft toothless voice. ' That's
very pretty reading.'

Dot came in, and she went away.

She had done a little * errand for her mother.' A very little
one; she did not deserve, yet, that more should be given her
to do; but her heart went up saying tenderly, remorsefully, —
' For your sake.'

And back into her heart came the fulfilment of the promise,.
— * He that doeth it in the name of a disciple, shall receive a
disciple's reward.'

These comforts, these reprievals, came to her ; then again,,
she went down into the blackness of the old memories, the
old self-accusations.

After she had found her way to Luclarion Grapp's, she
used sometimes, when these things seized her, to tie on her
bonnet, pull down her thick veil, and crying and whispering
behind it as she went, — ' Mother 1 Susie ! do you know how
I love you now ? how sorry I am ?' would hurry down, through
the busy streets, to the Neighbours.

* Give me something to do,' she would say, when she got
there.

And Luclarion would give her something to do ; would
keep her to tea, or to dinner ; and in the quietness, when they
were left by themselves, would say words that were given her
to say in her own character and fashion. It is so blessed
that the word is given and repeated in so many characters
and fashions ! That each one receives it and passes it on,
* in that language into which he was bom.'

* I wish you could hear Luclarion Grapp's way of talking,*
Ray Ingraham had said to her just after she had brought her
home. 'The kind of comfort she finds for the most wicked
and miserable, — people who have done such shocking things
as you never dreamed of.'

172 THE OTHER GIRLS

' I want to hear somebody talk to the very wickedest. If
there's any chance for me, there's where I must find it I
can't listen with the pretty-good people, any longer. It
doesn't belong to me, or do me any good.'

* Come and hear the gospel then.* And so Ray had taken
her down to Neighbour Street, to Luclarion Grapp.

* But the sin stays. You can't wipe the fact out ; and
you've got to take the consequences,' said Marion Kent to
the strong, simple woman to whom she came as to a second-
seer, to have her spiritual destinies revealed to her.

* Yes,' said Luclarion, gravely, but very sweetly, * you have.
But the consequences wear out. Everything wears out but
the Lord's love. And these old worn-out consequences —
why, He can turn them into blessings ; and He means to, as
they go along, and fade, and change ; until, by and by, we
may be safer and stronger, and fuller of" everlasting life, than
if we hadn't had them. I was vaccinated a while ago this
summer ; everybody was down here ; and I had a pretty sick
time. It took — ferocious ! Well, I got over it, and then I
thought about it. I'd got something out of my system for
ever, that might have come upon me, to destruction, all of a
sudden ; but now never will ! It appears to me almost as if
we were sent into this world, like a kind of hospital, to be
vaccinated against the awful evil — in our souls ; to suffer a
little for it ; to take it the easiest way we can take it, and
so be safe. I don't know — and if you hadn't repented, I
wouldn't put it into your head ; but it's been put into my
head, after I've repented, and I guess it's mainly true. See
here!'

And she took down a big leather-boimd Bible, and opened
it to the fortieth chapter of Isaiah.

'Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith the Lord.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and say unto her that
her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned ;
for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her
sins.'

* The Old Testament is full of the New ; men's wicked-
ness, — ^it took wicked men to show the way of the Lord
in the earth,^and God's forgiveness, and his leading it
all round right, in spite of them all ! Only He didn't turn

ERRANDS OF HOPE 173

the right side out all at once ; it wasn't safe to let them see
both sides then. But He trusts us now ; He gave his whole
heart in Jesus Christ ; He tells us, without any keeping
back, what He means our very sins shall do for us, and He
leaves it to us, after that, to take hold and help Him ! '

* If it weren't for them ! If I hadn't let them suffer and
die!*

* Do you think He takes all this care of you, — lets them
die for you even, — ^and don't take as much for them ? Do
you think they ain't glad and happy now ? Do you
think you could have hurt them, if you had tried — ^and
you didn't try, you only let them alone a little, for-
getting ? It says, " If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ; and He is the
propitiation." If we have somebody to take part with us
against our sins, how much more against our mistakes, — our
forgettings ! and they are the propitiation, too ; their angels
— the Christ of them — do always behold the face of the
Father. Their interceding is a part of the Lord's inter-
ceding.'

* If I could once more be let to do something for them —
their very selves ! '

* You can. You can pray. " Lord, give them some beau-
tiful heavenly joy this day that thou knowest of, for my
asking ; because I cannot any more do for them on the
earth." And then you can turn round to their errands
again.'

Marion stood up on her feet.

' I will say that prayer for them every day 1 I shall be-
lieve in it, because you told me. If I had thought of it
myself, I should not have dared. But He wouldn't send
such a message by you if He didn't mean it ; would He ? '

She believed in the God of Luclarion Grapp, as the
children of Israel believed in the God of Abraham.

' He never sends any message that He doesn't mean. He
means the comfort, just as much as He does the blaming.'

Another day, a while after, Marion came down to Neigh-
bour Street with something very much on her mind to say,
and to ask about They had all wailed for her own plans
to suggest themselves, or rather for her work to be given her

176 THE OTHER GIRLS

She read secret, loving meanings now, in things that had
their meanings only for her. She believed in spirit-communi-
cation, — for she knew it came ; but in its own beautiful, soul-
to-soul ways ; not by any outward spells.

She went for the water ; she found a piece of ice and put
in it. She came and raised the little head tenderly, — the child
was hurt in the back, and could not be lifted up, — and held
the goblet to the gentle lips ; lips patient, like Sue's !

* O, you move me so nice ! You give me the drink so
handy ! '

The beauty was in Marion's face still, warm with an inward
joy ; the child's eyes followed her as she rose from bending
over her.

* Real pretty,' she said again, softly, liking to look at her.
And ' read' was beginning to be the word, at last, for Marion
Kent.

The glory of that poem she had read, thinking only of her
own petty triumph, came suddenly over her thought by some
association, — she could not trace out how. Its grand meaning
was a meaning, all at once, for her. With a changed phrasing,
like a heavenly inspiration, the last line sprang up in her
mind, as if somebody stood by and spoke it : —

' These are the lambs of the sacrifice : this is the court of the King ! *

CHAPTER XVIII.

BRICKFIELD FARMS.

It was a rainy, desolate day.

It had rained the day before yesterday, and yesterday, and
half cleared up last night ; then this morning it had suUenly
and tiresome] y begun again.

All the forenoon it grew worse ; in the afternoon, heavy,
pelting, streaming showers came down, filling the Kiln
Hollow with mist, and hiding the tops of the hills about it
with low, rolling, ever-gathering and resolving clouds.

BRICKFIELD FARMS 177

It seemed as if all the autumn joy were over ; as if the
pleasant days were done with till another year. After this,
the cold would set in.

Mrs. Jeffords had a bright fire built in Mrs. Argenter^s
room ; another in the family sitting-room. It looked cosy ;
but it reminded the sojourners that they had not simply to
draw themselves into winter-quarters, and be comfortable ;
their winter-quarters were yet to seek.

Sylvie had been cracking a plateful of butternuts ; picking
out meats, I mean, from the cracked nuts, to make a plate -
ful ; and that, if you know butternuts, you know is no small
task. She brought them to her mother, with some grated
maple sugar sprinkled among and over them.

'This is what you hked so much at the Shakers', in
Lebanon,' she said. 'See if it isn't as nice as theirs. I think
it is fresher. Here is a tiny httle pickle-fork, to eat with.'

Mrs. Argenter took the offered dainty.

* You are a dear child,' she said. * Come and eat some
too.'

* O, I ate as I went along. Now, I'll read to you.' And
she took up ' Blindpits,' which her mother had laid down.

*If it only wouldn't storm so,' said Mrs. Argenter. *Mrs.
Jeffords says there will be a freshet. The roads will be all
torn up. We shall never be able to get home.'

* O yes, we shall,' said Sylvie, cheerily ; putting down the
wonder that arose obtrusively in her own mind as to where
the home would be that they should go to.

* Did Mrs. Jeffords tell you about last year's freshet.^ And
the apples ? '

*She said they had an awful flood. The brooks turned
into rivers, and die rivers swallowed up everything.'

' O, she didn't get to the funny part, then ?' said Sylvie.
* She didn't tell you about the apples ? '

* No. I think she keeps the funny parts for you, Sylvie.'

' May be she does. She isn't sure that you feel up to them
always. But I guess she means them to come round, when
she tells them to me. You see they had just been gathering
their apples, in that great lower orchard, — five acres of trees,
and such a splendid crop \ There they were, all piled up, —
can't you imagine ? A perfect picture ! Red heaps, and

178 THE OTHER GIRLS

yellow heaps; and greenings, and purple pearmains, and
streaked seek-no-fiirthers. Like great piles of autumn
leaves ! Well, the flood came, and rose up over the flats,
into the lower end of the orchard. They went down over
night, and moved all the piles further up. The next day they
had to move them again. And the next morning after that,
when they woke up, the whole orchard was imder water, and
every apple gone. Mr. Jeffords said he got down just in
time to see the last one swim round the comer. And when
the flood had fallen, — there, half a mile below, spread out
over the meadow, were three hundred barrels of apple sauce ! '
Mrs. Argenter laughed a feeble little expected laugh ; her
heart was not free to be amused with an apple-story. No
wonder Mrs. Jeffords kept the funny parts for Sylvie. Mrs.
Argenter quenched her before she could possibly get to them.
But was Sylvie's heart free for- amusement .^ What was the
difference ? The years between them ? Mrs. Jeffords was a
far older woman than Mrs. Argenter, and had had her cares
and troubles ; yet she and Sylvie laughed like two girls to-
gether over their work and their stories. That was it, — ^the
work ! Sylvie was doing cdl she could. The cheerfulness of
doing followed irresistibly after, into the loops and intervals
of time, and kept out the fear and the repining.

* There was nothing that chippered you up so, as being
real driving busy,' Mrs. Jeffords said.

Mrs. Argenter sat in her low easy-chair, watched away
the time, and worried about the time to come. It left no
leisure for a laugh.

Perhaps the hardest thing that Sylvie did through the day
was the setting to work to ' chipper ' her mother up. It was
lifting up a weight that continually dropped back again.

* Do they think this rain will ever be over ? ' asked Mrs.
Argenter, turning her face towards the dripping panes again.

* Why, yes, mother ; rains always have been over, some-
time. They never knew one that wasn't, and they go by
experience.'

There was nothing more to be said upon the rain topic,
after that simple piece of logic.

^If there doesn't come Badgett up the hill in all the
pour!'

BRICKFIELD FARMS 179

Badgett drove the daily stage from Tillington up through
Pemunk and Sandon. He came roimd by Brickfields when
there was anybody to bring.

Badgett drove up over the turf door-yard, close to the
porch. He jumped off, unbuttoned the dripping canvas
door, and flung it up.

Mrs. Jeffords was in the entry on the instant ; surprised,
puzzled, but all ready to be hospitable, to she didn't know
whom. Relations from Indiana, as likely as not That is
the way people arrive in the country ; and a whole house full
to stay over night does not startle the hostess as an unex-
pected guest to dinner may a city one.

But the persons who alighted from the clumsy stage-
waggon were Mr. Christopher Kirkbright, Miss Euphrasia,
and Desire Ledwith.

'Didn't you get our letter?' said Miss Euphrasia, as
Sylvie, from her mother's door- way, saw who she was, and
sprang forward.

*Why, no, we didn't get no letter,' said Mrs. Jeffords.
' Father hasn't been to the office for two days, it's stormed so
continual But you're just as welcome, exactly. Step right
in here.' And she flung open the door of her best parlour,
where the new boughten carpet was, for the damp feet and
the dripping waterproof.

* No, indeed ; not there ; we couldn't have the conscience.'

*'Tain't very comfortable either, after all,' said Mrs.
Jeffords, changing her own mind in a bustle. * Ifs been
kinder shut up. Come right out to the sittin'-room-fire,
finally.'

Mr. Kirkbright and Miss Ledwith followed her; Miss
Euphrasia went right into Mrs. Argenter's room, after she
had taken off her waterproof in the hall.

As she came in at the door, a great flash of sunshine
streamed from under the western clouds, in at the parlour
window, followed her across the hall and enveloped her in
light as she entered.

' Why, the storm's over ! ' cried Sylvie, joyfully. * You
come in on a sunbeam, like the Angel GabrieL But you
always do. How came you to come ?'

' I came to answer your letter. You know I don't like to

1^3

i8o THE OTHER GIRLS

write very well. And IVe brought my brother, and a dear
friend of mine whom I want you to know. It did not rain in
Boston when we started, but it came on again before noon,
and all the afternoon it has been a splendid down-pour.
Something really worth while to be out in, you know ; not a
little exasperating drizzle. That's the kind of rain one can't
bear, and catches cold in. How the showers swept round
the hills, and the cascades thundered and flashed as we came
by ! What a lovely region you have discovered ! '

* It's so beautiful that you're here ! We'll go down to the
cascades to-morrow. Won't you just come and introduce
me to the others, and then come back to mother ? '

The others were in the family-room, which was also dining-
room. In the kitchen beyond, Mrs. Jeffords' stove was
roaring up for zui early tea, and she was whipping griddle-
<:akes together.

*My brother, Mr. Kirkbright — Miss Argenter. Miss
Desire Ledwith — Sylvie.'

The two girls shook hands, and looked in each others'
faces.

* How clear, and strong, and trusty !' Sylvie thought

* You dear little spirit ! ' thought Desire, seeing the delicate
face, and the brave sweetness through it.

This was the second real introduction Miss Euphrasia had
made within ten days. It was a great deal, of that sort, to
happen in such space of time.

* If it hadn't been for the storm, we might have hurried
down £md missed you. Mother was begining to dread the;
coming on of the cold,' said Sylvie. * But the rain came and
settled it, for just now. That rested me. A real good " can't
help " is such a comfort.'

* The Father's No. Shutting us in with its grand, gentle
forbiddance. Many a rain-storm is that. I always feel so
safe when I am shut up by really impossible weather.'

After the tea, they were still in time for the whole sunset,
wonderful after the storm.

Desire had gone from the table to the half-glazed door
which opened from the room into a broad porch, looking out
directly across the hollow, along a valley-line of side-hills, to
the distant blue peaks.

BRICKFIELD FARMS i8i

* O, come ! ' she cried back to the others, as she hastened
out upon the platform. * It is marvellous ! '

Heavy lines of clouds lay banked together in the west,
black with the renmant and recoil of tempest ; between these,
through rifts and breaks, poured down the sunlight across
bright spaces into the bosoms of the hills, lighting them up
with revelations. The sloping outlines shone golden green
with lingering summer colour, and discovered each separate
wave and swell of upland. The searching shafts fell upon
every tree and bush and spire, moving slowly over them and
illuminating point after point, making each suddenly seem dis-
tinct and near. What had been a mere margin of distant woods,
stood eliminated and relieved in bough and stem and leafage,
with a singular pre-Raphaelitic individuality. It was the
standing-out of all things in the last radiance ; called up,
one by one under the flash of judgment— beautiful, clear,
terrible.

Then the clouds themselves, as the sun dropped down,
drank in the splendour. They turned to rose and crimson ;
they floated, and spread, and broke, and drifted up the valley,
against the hills on right and left. Rags and shreds of them,
trailing gorgeous with colour, clung where the ridges caught
them, and streamed like fragments of heavenly banners.
The sky repeated the October woods, — the woods the sky, —
in vivid numberless hues.

The sunset rolled up and around the watchers as they
gazed. They were in it ; it lay at their very feet, and beside
them at either hand. Below, the sheet of water in the * Clay-
Pits,' gleamed like burnished gold. Here and there, from
among the tree-tops, came up the smoke of little cascades,
reaching for baptism into the pervading glory.

It was chilly, and they had to go in; but they kept coming
back to window and door,- looking out through the clo^d
sashes, and calling, ' Now ! now ! O, was there ever anything
like that?'

At last it turned into a heavenly vision of still, far, shining
waters ; the earth and the pools upon it darkened, and the
sky gathered up into itself the glory, and disclosed its own
wider and diviner beauty.

A great rampart of gray, blue, violet clouds lay jagged,

i82 THE OTHER GIRLS

grand, like rocks along a shore. Up over them rushed light,
crimson surf, foaming, tossing. Beyond, a rosy sea. In it,
little golden boats floated. The flamy light flung itself up
into the calm zenith ; there it met the still heaven-colour,
and the sky was tender with saffron-toughed blue.

So the tempest of trouble met the tempest of love in the
end of the day, and the world rolled on into the night under
the glory and peace of their rushing and melting together.

After all that, they came back by a step and a word, —
these mortal observers, — to practical consultation such as
mortals must have, and especially if they be upon their
travels ; to questions about bestowal, and the homely, kindly,
funny little details of Mrs. Jeffords' hospitality.

* Where should she put them? Why, she was always
ready. To be sure, the front upper room had had the
carpets taken up since the summer company went, and the
beds were down ; but, la, there was room enough ! '

'There's the east down-stairs bed-room, and the little
west-room over the sittin'-room, and there's my room ! I
ain't never put out ! '

' But you are — out of your room ; and you ought not to be.'
^ Don't care /' said Mrs. Jeffords, triumphantly. 'There's
the kitchen bed-room, that I keep apurpose to camp down
in. It's all right Don't you worry.'

*You never care. That's the reason I do worry,' said
Sylvie.

' I've learnt not to care,' said Mrs. Jeffords. ' 'Tain't no
use. You must take things as they are. They will be so,
and you can't help it If they fall right side up, well and
good ; if they're wrong side up, let 'em lay ! And they ain't
wrong side up yet, I can tell you. You just go and sit down
and enjoy yourselves.'

Mrs. Argenter was brighter this evening than she had
been for a long while. 'It was nice to be among people
again,' she said, when the evening was over.

* So it is,' said Sylvie. * But somehow I didn't feel the
difference the other way. I think I always am among people.
At least it never seems to me as if they were very far off".
Next door mayn't be exactly alongside, but it is next door
for all that, and it is in the world. And the world wakes up

BRICKFIELD FARMS 183

all together every morning, — that is, as fast as the morning
gets round.'

With her * mayn't he's ' and her * is'es,' Sylvie was uncon-
sciously making a habit of the trick of Susan Nipper, but
with a kindlier touch to her antitheses than pertained to those
of that acerb damsel

Mrs. Argenter wanted tangible presences. She had not
reached so far as her child into that inner living where all
fed each other, knowing that 'these same tribulations' —
and joys also — are accomplished among the brotherhood
that is in all the earth ; knowing, too, — ah! that is the bless-
edness when we come to it, — ^that we may walk, already, in
the heavenly places with all them that are alive unto each
other in the Lord.

The next morning after deep rains in a hill-country is a
morning of wonders ; if you can go out among them, and
know where to find them. Down the ravines, from the far
back, greater heights, rush and plunge the streams whitened
with ecstasy, turned to sweet wild harmonies as they go. It
is a day of glory for the water-drops that are bom to make a
part of it

Sylvie knew the way down through the glen, from fall to
fall, half a mile apart She and Bob Jeffords had come down
to them, time and again ; after nearly every little summer
shower; for with all the heat, the night rains had been
plentiful and frequent, and the water-courses had been kept
full. The brick-fields, that looked so near from the jEarms,
were really more than two miles away ; and it was a constant
descent, from brow to brow, over the range of uplands be-
tween the Jeffords' place and the Basin.

' The First Cataracts are in here,' said Sylvie, gleefully,
leading the way in by a bar-place upon a very wet path, the
wetness of which nobody minded, all having come defended
with rubbers and waterproofs, and tucked up their petticoats
boot-high. Great bosks of ferns grew beside, and here and
there a bush burning with autunm colour. Everything shone
and dripped ; the very stones glittered.

They climbed up rocky slopes, on which the short gray
moss grew cushiony. They followed the line of maples and
elders and evergreens that sentineled and hid away the

i84 THE OTHER GIRLS

shouting stream, spreading their skirts and intertwining their
arms to shelter it, like the privacy of some royal child at
play, and to keep back from the pilgrims the beautiful sur-
prise. Upon a rough table-ledge, they came to it at last ;
the place where they could lean in between the trees, and
overlook and underlook the shining tumult, — the shifting,
yet enduring, apparition of delight.

It came in two leaps, down a winding channel, through
which it seemed to turn and spring, like some light, graceful,
impetuous living creatures. You felt it reach the first rock-
landing ; you were conscious of the impetus which forced it
on to take the second spring which brought it down beneath
yoiu: feet. And it kept coming — coming ! It was an eternal
moment ; a swift, vanishing, yet never over-and-done move*
ment of grace and splendour. That is the magic of a
waterfall Something exquisite by very suggestion of evanes-
cence, caugfit in transitu, and held for the eye and mind to
dwell on.

They were never tired of looking. The chance would not
come, — that ought to be a pause, — ^for them to turn and go
away.

' But there are more,' Sylvie said at length, admonishing
thenL ' And the Second Cataract is grander than this.'
' You number them going down,' said Mr. Kirkbright.
'Yes. People always number things as they come to them,
don't they? Our first is somebody's else last, I suppose,
always.'

' What a little spirit that is ! ' said Christopher Kirkbright
to Miss Euphrasia, dropping back to help his sister down a
rocky plimge.

* A little spirit waked up by touch of misfortune,' said Miss
Euphrasia. ' She would have gone through life blindfolded
by purple and fine linen, if things had been left as they were
with her.'

Desire and Sylvie walked on together.
' Leave them alone,' said Miss Kirkbright to her brother.
And she stopped, and began to gather handfuls of the late
ferns.

Now she had the chance given her, Desire said it straight
out, as she said everything.

BRICKFIELD FARMS 185

' I came up here after you, Miss Argenter. Did you know
it?'

* No. After me ? How ? ' asked Sylvie.

' To see if you and your mother would come and make
your home with us this winter, — ^pretty much as you do with
Mrs. Jeffords. I can say «j, because Hazel Ripwinkley, my
cousin, is with me nearly all the time ; but for the rest of it, I
am all the family there really is, now that Rachel Froke has
gone away ; unless you came to call my dear old Frendely
"family,'* as I do; seeing that, next to Rachel, she is root
and spring of it. You could help me ; you could help her ;
and I think you would like my work. I should be glad of
you; and your mother could have Rachel Froke's gray
parlour. It is a one-sided proposition, because, you see, I
know all about you already, from Miss Euphrasia. You will
have to take me at hazard, and find out by trying.'

* Do you think the old proverb isn't as true of good words
as of mischief, — that a dog who will fetch a bone will carry a
bone ?' said Sylvie, laughing with the same impulse by which
clear drops stood suddenly in her eyes, and a quick rosiness
came into her face. ' Do you suppose Miss Euphrasia hasn't
told me of you ? '

* I never thought I was one of the people to be told about,'
said Desire, simply. ' Do you think you could come ? Miss
Euphrasia believed it would be what you wanted. There is
plenty of room, and plenty of work. I want you to know
that I mean to keep you honestly busy, because then you will
imderstand that things come out honestly even.'

* Even ! Dear Miss Ledwith ! *
'Then you'll try it?'

' I don't know how to thank Miss Euphrasia or you.'

* There are no thanks in the bargain,' said Desire, smiling.
' I want you ; if you want me, it is a Q. E. D. If we do
dispute about anything, we'll leave it out to Miss Euphrasia.
She knows how to make everything right. She shall be our
broker. It is a good thing to have one, in some kinds of
trade.'

They had come around the curve in the road now, that
brought them alongside the shady gorge at the foot of Cone
HilL Here was the little group of brick-makers' houses;

i86 THE OTHER GIRLS

empty, weather-beaten, their door-yards overgrown with
brakes and mulleins. Beyond, up the ledge, to which a rough
drive-way, long disused, led off, was the quaint, rambling
edifice that with its feet of stone and brick went * walking up '
the mountain.

* You must go in and see it,' Sylvie said. ' But first, — this
is the way to the cascade.'

Another bar-place let them in again to another narrow,
wild, bush-grown path around the edge of the cliff, the lower
spur of the great hill ; and down over shelving rocks, a long,
gradual descent, to the foot of the fall.

The water foamed and rippled to their feet, as they walked
along its varying edge-line on the smooth, sloping stone that
stretched back against the perpendicular rampart of the cliff.
The fall itself was hidden in the turn around which, above,
they had followed the tangled pathway.

At the farthest projection of the platform they were now
treading, they came upon it ; beneath it, rather ; they looked
back and up at its showery silver sheet, falling in sweet, con-
tinual thunder into the dark, hollow, rock-encircled pool,
thence to tumble away headlong, from point to point, lower
and lower yet, by a thousand little breaks and plunges, till it
came out into a broad meadow stretch miles and miles away.

' What a hurry it is in, to get down where it is wanted,'
said Desire.

She had seated herself beside the curling edge of the swift
stream, where it seemed to trace and keep by its own will its
boundary upon the nearly level rock, and was gazing up where
the white radiance poured itself as if direct from out the blue
above.

Mr. Kirkbright stood behind her.

* Most things come to us at last so quietly,' he said. * It
is good to feel and see what a rush it starts with, — out of
that heart of heaven.'

Desire had not said that ; but it was just what she had been
feeling. Eager to get to us ; coming in a hurry. Was that
God's impulse towards us ?

' Making haste to help and satisfy the world.' Mr. Kirk-
bright said again.

' A river of clear water of life, coming down out of the
throne,' said Miss Euphrasia. * What a sign it is ! '

BRICKFIELD FARMS 187

Mr. Kirkbright walked along the margin of the ledge,
farther and farther down. He tried with his stick some stones
that lay across the current at a narrow point where beneath
the opposite cliff it bent and turned away, losing itself from
their sight as they stood here. Then he sprang across ;
crept, stooping, along the narrow foothold under the pro-
jecting rock, until he could follow with his eye the course of
the rapid water, falling continually to its lower level as it
sped on and on, all its volume gathered in one deep, rocky,
unchangeable bed.

* What a waiting power ! ' he exclaimed, springing safely
back, and coming up toward them. < What a stream for
mills ! And it turns nothing but the farmers' grists, till it
gets to Tillington.'

Desire was a very little disappointed at this utilitarianism.
She had been so glad and satisfied with the reading of its
type ; the type of its far-back impulse.

* If there had been mills here, we should not have seen
that,' she said ; forgetting to explain what.

But Christopher Kirkbright knew.

' What was it that we did see ? ' he asked, coming beside
her.

*The gracious hurry/ she answered, with a half-vexed
surprise in her eyes.

'And what is the next thing to seeing that? Isn't it to
partake ? To be in a gracious hurry, also, if we can ?'

A smile came up now in Desire's face, and effaced gently
the vexation and the surprise.

' Do you know what a legible face you have ? ' asked Mr.
Kirkbright, seating himself near her on a step of rock.

Desire was a little disturbed again by this movement.
The others had begun to walk on, up the ledge, toward the
old brick house ; gathering as they went ferns that had
escaped the frost, others that had delicately whitened in it,
and gorgeous maple-leaves, swept from topmost, inaccessible
branches, — ^where the most glorious colour always hangs, —
by last night's rain and wind.

It was so foolish of her to have sat there until he came and
did this. Now sh6 could not get right up and go away.
This feeling, coming simultaneously with his question about

1 88 THE OTHER GIRLS

her legible face, was doubly uncomfortable. But she had to
answer. She did it briefly.

* Yes. It is a great bother. I don't like coarse print.'
*Nor I. But my eyes are good; and the fine print is

clear. I should like very much to tell you of something that
I have to do, Miss Ledwith. I should like your thoughts
upon it. For, you see, I have hardly yet got acquainted with
my ground. From what my sister tells me, I think your
work leads naturally up to mine. I should like to find out
whether it is quite ready for the join.'

*I haven't much work,' said Desire. *Luclarion Grapp
has ; and Miss Kirkbright, and Mr. Vireo. I only help, —
with some money that belongs to it.'

*And I have more money that belongs to it,' said Mr.
Kirkbright.

It was a curious way for a rich man and a rich woman to
talk to each other about their money. But I do not believe
it ought to be curious.

* Don't you often conae across people who cannot be helped
much just where they are ? Don't you feel, sometimes, Uiat
there ought to be a place to send them to, away, out of their
old tracks, where they could begins ag^in ; or even hide a
while, in shame and repentance, before- they dare to Jjegin
again ? '

' I know Luclarion does,' said Desire, earnestly.
She would have it, still, that there was no work in her own
name for him to ask aborut.

* I must see this Luclarion of yours,' said Mr. Kirkbright.
' Meanwhile, since I have got you to talk to, pray tell me all
you can, whoever found it out Isn't there a need for a City
of Refuge ? And suppose a place like this, away from the
towns, where God's beautifiil water is coming down in a
hurry, with a cry of power in every leap, — where there is a
great lake-basin full of material for work, just stored away
against men's need for their earning and their buildijig, —
suppose this place taken and used for the giving of a new
chance of life to those who have failed and gone wrong, or
have perhaps hardly ever had any right chances. Do you think
we could manage it so as to keep it a place of refuge and new
beginning, and not let it spoil itself?'

BRICKFIELD FARMS 189

*With the right people at each end, why not?' said
Desire. * But O, Mr. Kirkbright ! how can I tell you ? It is
such a great idea ; and I don't know anything.'

These words, that she happened to say, brought back to
her — by one of those little lightning threads that hold things
together, and flash and thrill our recollections through us —
the rainy morning when she went round in the storm to her
Aunt Ripwinkley's, because she could not sit in the bay-
window at hom.e, and wonder ' whether it was all finished,'
or whether anybody had got to contrive anything more,
'before they could sit behind plate-glass and let it rain.'
She remembered it all by those same words that she had
spoken then to Rachel Froke, — * Behold, we know not any-
thing — Tennyson and I ! '

Nonsense stays by us, often, in stickier fashion than sense
does. That is the good of nonsense, perhaps : it sticks, and
draws the sense along after it.

* I think one thing is certain,' said Mr. Kirkbright. * Hu-
man creatures are made for " moving on." I believe the
Swedenborgians are right in this, — that the places above, or
below, are filled from the human race, or races ; and that the
Lord Himself couldn't do much with beings made as He has
made us, without places to move us into. New beginnings,
— evenings and mornings ; the very planet cannot go on its
way without making them for itself. Life bound down to
poor conditions, — and all conditions are poor in the sense of
being limited while the life is resistlessly expanding, — festers,
fevers, breaks out in violence and disease. I believe we
want new places more than anything. I came up here on
purpose to see if I could not begin one.'

* How happened you to come just here ? ' questioned De-
sire. * What could you know of this beforehand ? '

' My sister had Miss Argenter's letter ; and at once she
remembered the name of the place and its story. That is
the way things come together, you know. My brother-in-
law, Mr. Sherrett, owns, or did own, this whole property.. A
" dead stick " he thought it. Well, Aaron's rod was another
dead stick. But he laid it up before the Lord, and it blos-
somed.'

Desire sat silent, looking at the white water in its gracious

I90 THE OTHER GIRLS

hurry. Pouring itself away, unused, — ^unheeded ; yet waiting
there, pouring always. The tireless impulse of the divine
help; vehement, eager, with a human eagerness; yet so
patient, till men's hands should reach out and lay hold of it !

She dreamed out a whole dream of life that might grow
up beside this help ; of work that might be done there. She
forgot that she was lingering, and keeping Mr. Kirkbright
lingering, behind the others.

' You would have to live here yourself, I should think,* she
said at length, speaking out of her vision of the things that
might be, and so— would have to be. She had got drawn
in to the contemplation of the scheme, and had begim to
weigh and arrange, involuntarily, its details ; forgetting that
she ' knew not anything.'

Mr. Kirkbright smiled.

* Yes, I see where you are/ he said. * I had arrived at
precisely the same point myself. But the " right people at
the other end ?" Who should they be ? Who shall send me
my villagers, — my workers ? Who shall discriminate for me,
and keep things true and unconfused at the source ? '

' Your sister, Mr. Vireo, Luclarion Grapp,' Desire repeated,
promptly.

*And yourself?'

* Yes ; I and Hazel, all we can. We help them. And now
there will be Miss Argenter. As Hazel said, — " We all of
us know the Muffin-man." How queer that that ridiculous
play should come to mean so much with us! Luclarion
Grapp is actually a muffin- woman, you know ?'

' I'm afraid I don't know the Muffin-/«a» literally, except
what I can guess of him by your application,' said Mr. Kirk-
bright, laughing. * I've no doubt I ought to, and that it would
do me good.'

' You will have to come to Greenley Street, and find him
out Hazel and Miss Craydocke manage all the introductions,
as having a kind of proprietorship : " and quite proper, I'm
sure" — Why, where are Miss Kirkbright and Miss Argenter.?'

Coming back to light common speech, she came back also
to the present circumstance; reminded also, perhaps, by her
' quite proper ' quotation.

' If I may come to Greenley Street, I may learn a good deal

BRICKFIELD FARMS 191

beside the Muffin-man/ said Mr. Kirkbright, giving her his
hand to help her up a steep, slippery place.

Desire foolishly blushed. She knew it, and knew that her
hat did not defend her in the least She could not take it
back now ; she had invited him. But what would he think
of her blushing about it ?

' You can learn what we all learn. I am only a scholar,'
she said, shortly. And then she stood accused before her
own truthfulness of having covered up her blush by a dis-
claimer that had nothing to do with it. She was conscious
that she had coloured like any silly girl, at she hardly knew
what. She was provoked with herself, for letting the shadow
of such things touch her. She hurried on, up the rough
bank, before Mr. Kirkbright. When she reached the top, she
turned roimd and faced him; this time with a determinedly
cool cheek.

* I don't know why I said that I did not suppose you
thought you could learn anything of me,' she said. ' I was
confused to think I had asked you in that off-hand way to
my house. I have not been very long used to being the
head of a house.*

She smiled one of those bits of smiles of hers ; a mere
relaxation of the lips that showed the white tips of her front
teeth, and just indicated the peculiar, pretty curve with whidfe
the others were set behind them ; feeling re-assured and re-
instated in her own self-respect by her explanation. Then,
without letting him answer, she turned swiftly round again,
and, sprang up the rugged stairway of the shelving rock. s.

But she had not uninvited him, after alL

They found Miss Kirkbright and Sylvie waiting for them
at the red house. It was a quaint structure, with a kind of
old, foreign look about it It made you think either of an
ancient family mansion in some provincial French town, or
of a convent for nuns.

It was of dark red brick, — the quality of which Mr. Kirk-
bright remarked with satisfaction, — with high walls at the
gable ends carried above the slope of the roof. These were
met and overclasped at the comers by wide, massive eaves.
A high, narrow door, with a fan-light, occupied the middle
of the end before which the party stood. Windows above.

192 THE OTHER GIRLS

with little balconies, were Jtiung with old red woollen damask,
fading out in stripes ; perishing, doubtless, with moth and
decay ; in one was suspended a rusty bird-cage which had
once been gilt.

What an honest neighbourhood this was, in which these
things had remained for years, and not even the panes of
the windows had been broken by little boys ! But then the
villages full of little boys were miles away, and the single
families at the nearer farms were well-ordered Puritan folk,
fathered and mothered in careful, old-fashioned sort There
was some indefinite awe, also, of the lonely place, and of
the rich, far-off owner who might come any day to look after
his rights, and make a reckoning with them.

Up, from platform to platform of the terraced rock, as
Sylvie had said, climbed the successive sections of the
dwelling. The front was two and a half stories high ; the
last outlying projection was a single square apartment with
its own low roof; towards the back, within, you went up
flight after flight of short stairs from room to room, from
passage to passage. Once or twice, the few broad steps
between two apartments ran the whole width of the same.

' What a place for plays ! '

' Or for a little children's school, ranged in rows, one above
another.'

* The man who built it must have dreamt it first ! *

These were the exclamations that they made to each other
as they passed through, exploring.

There was a great number of bedrooms, divided off here
and there ; the upper front was one row of them, with a
gallery running across the house, in whose windows toward
the south hung the old red woollen draperies and the bird-
cage.

Below, at the back, the last room opened by a door upon
a high, flat table of the rock, aroimd whose overhanging
edge a light railing had been run. Standing here, they
looked up and down the beautiful gorge, into the heart of
the hill and the depth of its secret shaded places on the one
hand, and on the other into the rush and whirl of the rapidly
descending and broken torrent to where it flung itself off
the sudden brink, and changed into white mist and an ever-
lasting song.

BRICKFIELD FARMS 193

'This last room ought to be a chapel/ said Mr. Kirk-
bright. ' Out here could be open-air service in the beautiful
weather, to the sound of that continual organ.'

* You have thought of it, too/ exclaimed Desire.

* Of what ? ' asked Mr. Kirkbright, turning towards her.
' Of what you might make this place.'

' What would you make of it ? '

They were a little apart, by themselves, again. It kept
happening so. Miss Kirkbright and Sylvie had a great deal
to say to each other.

* I would make it a moral sanatorium. I would take
people in here, and nurse them up by beautiful living, till
they were ready to begin the world again ; and then I woiild
have the little new world, of work and business, waiting just
outside. I would have rooms for them here, that they should
feel the own-ness of ; flowers to tend ; ferneries in the
windows ; they could make them from these beautiful woods,
and send them away to the cities ; that would be a business
at the very first ! I would have all the lovely, natural ways
of living to win them back by, — to teach them pure things ;
yes, — and I would have the chapel to teach them the real
gospel in ! That bird-cage in the gallery window made me
think of it all, I believe,' she ended, bringing herself back
out of her enthusiasm with a recollection.

* I knew you could tell me how/ said Mr. Kirkbright,
quietly.

* How Hazel would rejoice in this place ! It is a place to
set anyone drearhing, I think ; because, perhaps, as Miss
Kirkbright said, the man was in a dream when he planned it'

* I mean to try if one dream cannot be lived,' said Chris-
topher Kirkbright. * At any rate, let us have the vision out,
while we are about it ! What do you think of brickmaking
for the hard, rough working men, with families, with those
cottages and more like them to live in ; and paper-making,
in mills down there, for others ; for the women and children,
especially. Paper for hangings, say; then, some time or
other, the printing works, and the designing ? Might it not
all grow ? And then wouldn't we have a ladder all the way
up, for them to climb by, — out of the clay and common toil
to art and beauty ? '

194 THE OTHER GIRLS

' You can dream delightfully, Mr. Kirkbright.'

' I will see if I cannot begin to turn it into fact, and make
it pay,' he answered. * Pay itself, and keep itself going. I
do not need to look for my fortune from it. The fortune is
to be put into it. But I have no right to lose, — to throw
away, — the fortune. It must come by degrees, like all things.
You know some people say that God dreamed the heavens
and the earth in those six wonderful days, and then took his
million of years for the everlasting making, with the Sabbath
of his divine satisfaction between the two. If I cannot do
the whole, there may be others, — and if there are, we shall
find them, — who would help to build the city.'

. * I know who,' said Desire, instantly. 'Dakie Thayne, and
Ruth ! It is just what they want.'

' Will " Dakie Thayne" build a railroad, — seven miles, —
across to Tillington, — for our transportation ? We'll say he
wilL I have no question it is Dakie Thayne, or somebody,
who is waiting, and that the right people are all linked
together, ready to draw each other in,' said Mr. Kirkbright,
giving rein to the very lightness of gladness in the joy of the
thought he was pursuing. * We don't know how we stand
leashed and looped, all over the world, imtil the Lord begins
to take us in hand, and brings us together towards his grand
intents. We shall want another Hilary Vireo to preach that
gospel here ; and I don't doubt he is somewhere, though it
would hardly seem possible.'

*Why don't we preach it ourselves?* said Desire, with
inimitable unwittingness. She was so utterly and wholly in
the vision, that she left her present self standing there on the
rock with Christopher Kirkbright, and never even thought of
a reason why to blush before him.

* I don't know why we shouldn't In fact, we could not
help it. It would be all gospel, wouldn't it? I know, at
least, what I should mean the whole thing to preach.'

Saying this, he fell silent all at once.

* There is a great deal of wrong gospel preached in the
world. If we could only stop that, and begin again, — I
think ! ' said Desire. ' Between the old, hopeless terrors and
the modem smoothing away and letting go, the real living

BRICKFIELD FARMS 195

help seems to have failed men. They don't know where it

is, or whether they need it, even.'

*Yes, that is it,' said Christopher Kirkbright, letting his

silence be broken through with the whole tide of his earnest,

life-long, pondered thought ' Men have put aside the old

idea of the avenging and punishing God, until they think

they have no longer any need of Christ God is Love, they

tell us ; not recognising that the Christ is that very Love of

God. He will not cast us into hell, they say ; there is no pit

of burning torment But they know there is something that

follows after sin ; they know that God is not weak, but

abides by his own truth. Therefore, when they have made

out God to be Love, and blotted away the old, literal hell,

they turn back and declare pitilessly, — "There is Law, Law

punishes ; and Law is inexorable. God Himself does not

suspend or contradict his Law. You have sinned ; you must

take the consequences." Are you better off in the clutch of

that Law, than you were in the old hell? Isn't there the

same need as ever crying up from hearts of suffering men

for a Saviour ? Of a side of God to be shown to them, —

the forgiving side, the restoring right hand ? The power to

grasp and curb his own law ? You must have Jesus again !

You must have the Christ of God to help you against the

Law of God that you have put in the place of the hell you

will not believe in. Without a counteracting force, law will

run on for ever. The impetus that sin started will bear on

downward, through the eternities ! That is what threatens

the sinner ; and you have sinned. Beyond and above and

through the necessities that He seems to have made, Go4

reveals Himself supreme in love, in the Face of Jesus Christ

He comes in the very midst of the clouds, with power and

great glory ! "I hsiv^ provided a way," He says, " from the

foundations, — ^for you to repent and for Me to take you back.

It was a part of my plan to forgive. You have seen but

half the revolution of my wheel of Law. Fling yourself

upon it ; believe ; you shaU be broken ; but you shall not be

ground into powder. You shall find yoursdf lifted up into

the eternal peace and safety ; you shall feel yourself folded

in the arms of my tender compassion. The bones that J,

have broken shall rejoice. Your life shall be set right for

o a

196 THE OTHER GIRLS

you, notwithstanding the Law ; yea, by the Law. I have pro-
vided. Only believe/'

' This is the word, — the Christ, — on God's part. This is
repentance and saving faith, on our part. It is the Gospel.
And it came by mouth, and the interpreting and confirming
acts, of Jesus. The power of the acts was little matter ;
the expression of the acts was everything. He proclaimed
forgiveness, — He healed disease ; He reversed evil and
turned it back. He changed death into life, — ^taking away
the sting — the implantation of it, which is sin. For ever-
more the might of the Redemption stands above the might
of the Law that was transgressed.'
' You have dedicated your chapel, Mr. Kirkbright.'
Desire Ledwith said it, with that emotion which makes
the voice sound restrained and deep ; and as she said it,
she turned to go back into the house.

CHAPTER XIX.

BLOSSOMING FERNS.

The minister's covered carryall was borrowed from two
miles off, to take Mrs. Argenter down to Tillington.

All she knew about the winter plan was that Miss Led-
with was a friend of Miss Kirkbright's, had a large, old-
fashioned house, and scarcely any household, and would be
glad to have herself and Sylvie take rooms with her for
several months. She had a vague idea that Miss Ledwith
might be somewhat restricted in her means, and that to
receive lodgers in a friendly way would be an 'object' to
her. She talked, indeed, with a gentle complaisance to Miss
Kirkbright, about its not being exactly what they had in-
tended, — they had thought of rooms at Hotel Pelham or
Boylston, so central and so near the Libraries ; but after all,
what she needed most was quiet and no stairs ; and she had
a horr<5r of elevators, and a dread of fire ; so that this was
really better, perhaps ; and Miss Ledwith was a very sweet
person.

BLOSSOMING FERNS 197

Miss Euphrasia smiled ; * sweet/ especially in the silvery-
tone in which Mrs. Argenter uttered it, was the last mono-
syllabic epithet she would have selected as applying to grave,
earnest, downright Desire.

At East Keaton, the train stopped for five minutes.

Sylvie had begged Mr. Kirkbright beforehand to get her
mother's foot- warmer filled with hot water at the station, and
he had just returned with it. She was busily arranging it
under Mrs. Argenter's feet again, and wrapping the rug
about her, kneeling beside her chair to do so, when some
one entered the drawing-room car in which the party was,
and came up behind her.

She thought she was in the way of some stranger, and
hastily arose.

' I beg your pardon,' she said, instinctively, and turned as
she spoke.

*What for?* asked Rodney Sherrett, holding out both
hands, and grasping hers before she was well aware.

There were morning stars in her eyes, and a beautiful
sunrise crimsoned her cheek. These two had not seen each
other all summer.

Aunt Euphrasia looked from one face to the other.

* Not to say anything for two years ! ' she thought, recalling
inwardly her brother's wise injunction. *It sa^s itself,
though ; and it was made to! *

* How do you do, Mrs. Argenter ? I hope you are feeling
better for your country summer ? Aunt Effie I You're not
surprised to see me? Did you think I would let you go
down without ? '

No ; Aunt Effie, when she had written him that regular
little Sunday afternoon note from Brickfield, telling him that
they were all to come down on Tuesday, had thought no
such thing. And she was at this moment, with wise fore-
thought, packed in behind all the others, in the most inac-
cessible corner of the car.

' You're not going down to the city ? * '

But he was. Rodney's eyes sparkled as he told her.

' Your own doctrine exemplified. Things always happen,
you say. One of the mills is stopped for just this very day
of all others, — repairing machinery. I'm off work, for the

198 THE OTHER GIRLS

first time in four months. There has been no low water all
summer. Regular header, straight through. Don't you see
I'm perfectly emaciated with the confinement ? Pve breathed
in wool-stuffing till I feel like a pincushion.'

* An emaciated wool-stuffed pincushion! Yes, I think you
do look a little like it!' Aunt Euphrasia talked nonsense
just as he did, because she was so pleased she could not
help it.

They paired, naturally. Miss Kirkbright and Mrs. Ar-
genter, facing each other in the comer, were eating tongue
sandwiches out of the same basket ; and Sylvie had poured
out for her mother the sugared claret and water with which
her little travelling flask had been filled. Mr. Kirkbright had
monopolised Desire, sitting upon the opposite side of the car,
with another long talk, about brick and tile making, and
the compatibility of a paper manufactory and a House of
Refuge.

' I will not have it called that, though. It shall not be
stamped with any stereotyped name. It shall not even be a
Home, — except my home \ and 111 just take them in : I and
Euphrasia.'

There was nothing for Rodney to do, but to sit down be-
side Sylvie, with three hours before him, which he had
earned by ifour months among the wheels and craiiks and
wool-fluff.

Of all these four months there has been no chance to tell
you anything before as concerning him.

He had been at Arlesbury; learning to be a manufacturer ;
beginning at the beginning with the belts and rollers, spindles,
shuttles, and harnesses ; finding out the secrets of satinets
and doeskins and kerseys ; drivings as he had wanted to do ;
taking hold of something and making it go.

' It isn't exactly like trotting tandem,' he told Sylvie ; * but
there's a something living in it, too ; a creature to bit and
manage ; that's what I like about.it. But I hate the oil, and
the noise, and the dust. Why, this is pindrop silence to it!
I hope it won't make me deaf, — and dumb ! Father will feel
bad if it does,' he said, with an , indescribably pathetic
demureness.

BLOSSOMING FERNS 199

'Was it your father's plan?' asked Sylvie, laughing
merrily.

' Well,-^yes 1 At least I told him to take me and set me
to work ; or I should pretty soon be good for nothing ; and
so he looked round in a great fright and hurry, as you may
imagine, and put me into the first thing he could think of,
and that was this. I'm to stay at it for two years, before I
— Ask him for anything else. I think I shall have a good
right then, don't you ? I'm thinking all the time about my
Three Wishes. I suppose I may wish three times when I
begin 1 They always do.'

What could he tjdk but nonsense ? Earnestness had been
forbidden him ; he had to cover it up with the absurdity of
a boy.

But what a blessing that it made no manner of difference !
That in all things of light and speech, the gracious law is that
the flash should go so much farther, as well as faster than the
sound f

Something between them unspoken told the story that
words, though they be waited for, never tell half so \Yell.
She knew that she had to do with his being in earnest. She
knew that she had to do with his being at play, this moment,
laughing and joking the time away beside her on this rail-
way trip. He had come to join Aunt Euphrasia? Yes,
indeed, and there sat Aunt Euphrasia in her comer, reading
the 'Vicar's Daughter,' and between times talking a little
with Mrs. Argenter. Not ten sentences did aunt and nephew
exchange, all the way from East Keaton down to Cambridge^
When Mrs. Argenter grew tired as the day wore on, and a
sofa was vacated, Rodney helped Sylvie to move the shawls
and the footwarmer, and the rug, and improvise cushions,
and make her mother comfortable ; then, as Mrs. Argenter
feel asleep, they sat near her and chatted on.

And Aunt Euphrasia read her book, and considered her-
self escorted and attended to, which is just such a convenience
as a judicious and amiably disposed female relative appre-
ciates the opportunity for making of herself.

Down somewhere in Middlesex, boys began to come into
the cars with great bunches of trailing ferns to seU ; exquisite
things that people have just begun to find out and clamour

200 THE OTHER GIRLS

for, and that so a boy-supply has vigorously arisen to
meet.

* O, how lovely ! * cried Sylvie, at one stopping-place,
where an urchin stood with his arms full; the glossy d^icate
leaves wreathed round and round in long loops, and the
feathery blossoms dropping like mist-tips from among them.

* And weVe too exclusive here for him to be let in.'

Of course the window would not open ; drawing-room car
windows never do. Rodney rushed to the door ; held up a
dollar greenback.

* Boy ! Here ! toss up your load ! '

The long train gave its first spasm and creak at starting ;
up came the tangle of beauty; down fluttered the bit of
paper to the platform ; and Rodney came in with the rare
garlands and tassels drooping all about him.

Everybody was delighted; Aunt Euphrasia dropped her
book, and made her way out of her comer ; Desire and Mr.
Kirkbright handled and exclaimed; Mrs. Argenter opened
her eyes, and held out her fingers towards them with a
smile.

* Such a quantity — for everybody ! ' said Sylvie, as he put
them into her lap, and she began to shake out the bunches.

* How kind you were, Mr. Sherrett! We've longed so to find
some of these, haven't we, Amata? Has anybody got a news-
paper, or two.? We'd better keep them all together till we
get home.' And she coiled the sprays carefully round and
round into a heap.

No matter if they should be all given away to the very last
leaf; she could thank innocently 'for everybody'; but she
knew very well what the last leaf, falling to her to keep,
would stand for.

In years and years to come, Sylvie will never see climbing
ferns again, without a feeling as of all the delicate beauty and
significance of the world gathered together in a heap and laid
into her lap.

She had seen the dollar that Rodney paid for them flutter
down beside the window as the car moved on, and the boy
spring forward to catch it. Rodney Sherrett earned his
dollars now. It was one of his very, very own that he spent
for her that day. A girl feels a strange thrill when she sees,

' WANTED 20I

fof the first time, a fragment of the life she cares for given,
representatively, thus for her.

It is useless to analyse and explain. Sylvie did not stop to
do it, neither did Rodney ; but that ride, that little giving
and taking, were full of parable and heart-telegraphy between
them. That October afternoon was a long, beautiful dream;
a dream that must come true, some time. Yet Rodney said
to his aunt, as he bade her good-bye that evening, at her own
door (he had to go back to the station to take the night train
up), — ^ Why shouldn't we have this piece of our lives as well
as the rest. Auntie? Why should two years be cribbed off?
There won't be any too much of it, and there won't be any of
it just like this.'

Aunt Euphrasia only stooped down from the doorstep,
and kissed him on his cheek, saying nothing.

But to herself she said, after he had gone —

' I don't see why, either. They would be so happy, waiting
it out together. And there never is any time like this time.
How is anybody sure of the rest of it ? '

Aunt Euphrasia knew. She had not been sure of the rest
of hers.

CHAPTER XX.

' WANTED.

The half of course and half critical way in which Mrs.
Argenter took possession of the gray parlour, would have
been funny, if it had not been painful, to Sylvie, feeling
almost wrong and wickedly deceitful in betraying her mother,
through ignorance of the real arrangements, into a false and
unsuitable attitude ; and to Desire, for Sylvie's sake.

She thought it would do nicely if the windows weren't too
low, and if the little stove-grate could be replaced by an open
wood fire. Couldn't she have a Franklin, or couldn't the fire-
place be unbricked ?

* I don't think you'll mind, with cannel coal,' said Sylvie.
* That is so cheerful ; and there won't be any smoke, for Miss
Ledwith says the draught is excellent*

202 THE OTHER GIRLS

' But it stands out, and takes up room ; and people never
keep the carpet clean behind it ! ' said Mrs. Argenter.

* 111 take care of that/ said Sylvie. ' It is my business.
We couldn't have these rooms, you see, except just as I have
agreed for them ; and you know I like making things nice
myself in the morning.'

Desire had delicately withdrawn by this time ; and pre-
sently coming back with a cup of tea upon a little tray, which
refreshment she was sure Mrs. Argenter would need at once
after her journey, she found the lady sitting quite serenely in
the low cushioned chair before the obnoxious grate, in which
Sylvie had kindled the lump of cannel that lay all ready for
the match, in a folded newspaper, with three little pitch-pine
sticks.

There was something so dainty and compact about it, and
the bright blaze answered so speedily to the communicating
touch, the black layers falling away from each other in rich,
bituminous flaldness, and letting the fire-tongues through,
that she looked on in the happy complacence with which idle
or disabled persons always enjoy something that does itself,
yet can be followed in the doing with a certain passive sense
of participancy.

In the same manner she watched Sylvie putting away
wraps, unlocking trunks, laying forth dressing-gowns and
night-clothes, and setting out toilet cases upon table and
stand.

For the gray parlour contained now, for Mrs. Argenter's
use, a pretty, low, curtained French bed, and the other appli-
ances of a sleeping-room. A bedroom adjoining, which had
been Mrs. Froke's, was to be Sylvie's ; and this had a further
communication directly with the kitchen, which would be just
the thing for Sylvie's quiet flittings to and fro in the fulfil-
ment of her gladly undertaken duties. All Mrs. Argenter
knew about it was that she should be able to have her hot
water promptly in the mornings, without being intruded upon.

Sylvie had insisted upon Desire's receiving the seven dollars
a week which she was still able to pay for her mother's board.
Nobody had told her of Miss Ledwith's very large wealth,
and it would have made no difference if she had known it,
except the exciting in her of a quick question why they had

' WANTED' 203

been taken in at all, and whether she were not indeed being
in her turn benevolently practised upon, as she with much
compunction practised upon her mother.

* I know very well that I could not earn, beyond my own
board, more than the difference between that and the ten
dollars she would have to pay anywhere else,' she said, sim-
ply. And Miss Kirkbright as simply told Desire, privately,
to let it be so.
' If you don't need the pay, she needs the payment,' she said.
Desire quietly put it all aside, as she received it. * Some-
time or other I shall be able to tell her all about it, and make
her take it back,' she said. * When she has come to under-
stand, she will know that it is no more mine than hers ; and
if I do not keep it I can see very well it will all go after the
rest, for Vhatever whims she can possibly gratify her mother
m.'

There began to be happy times for Sylvie now, in
Frendely's kitchen, in Desire's library ; all over the house,
wherever there was any little care to take, any service to
render. Mrs. Argenter did not miss her; she read a great
deal, and slept a great deal, and Sylvie was rarely gone long
at a time. She was always ready at twilight to play back-
gammon, or a game of what she called * skin-deep chess,' for
her mother was not able to bear the exertion or excitement of
chess in real, deep earnest. Sylvie brought her sewing, also,
— ^work for Neighbour Street it was, mostly, — into the gray
parlour, and * sewed for two,' on the principle of the fire-
watching, that something busy might be going on in the
room, and Mrs. Argenter might have the content of seeing it.
On the Wednesday evenings recurred the delightful * Read-
and-Talk,' when the Ingrahams came, and Bel Bree, and a
dozen or so more of the * other girls '; when on the big table
treasures of picture, map, stereoscope, and story were brought
forth ; when they traversed far countries, studied in art-
galleries and frescoed churches, traced back old historic
associations ; did not hurry or rush, but stayed in place after
place, at point after point, looking it all thoroughly up, enjoy-
ing it like people who could take the world in the leisure of
years. And as they did not have the actual miles to go
over, the standing about to do, and the fatigues to sleep

204 THE OTHER GIRLS

between, they could *work in the ground fast/ like Hamlet,
or any other spirit. Their hours stood for months ; and
their two months had given them already winters and sum-
mers of enchantment

Hazel Ripwinkley, and very often Ada Geoffrey, was here
at the travelling parties. Ada had all her mother's resources
of books, engravings, models, specimens, at her command ;
she would come with a carriage-full. Sometimes the library
was Rome for an evening, with its Sistine Raphaels, its
curious relics and ornaments, its Coliseum and St Peter's in
alabaster, its views of tombs, and baths, and temples. Some-
times it was Venice ; again it was transformed into a dream
of Switzerland; and again, there were the pyramids, the
obelisks, the sphinxes, the giant walls and gateways of Eg3rpt,
vdth a Nile boat, and lotus flowers, and papyrus seeds, in
reality or fac-simile, — even a mummied finger and a scara-
bceus ring.

They were not restricted, even, to a regular route, when
their subject took them out of it. They could have a glimpse
of Memphis, or Babylon, or Alexandria, or Athens, by way
of following out an allusion or synchronism.

Hazel and Ada almost came to the conclusion that this
was the perfection of travelling, and the supersedure of all
literal and laborious sight-seeing ; and Sylvie Argenter ven-
tured the Nipperism that * tea and coffee and spices might or
might not be a little different right off the bush, but if ship-
loads were coming in to you all the time, you might combine
things with as much comfort on the whole, perhaps, as you
would have in sailing round for every separate pinch to
Ceylon, and Java, and Canton.'

The leaf had got turned between Leicester Place and
Pilgrim Street I suppose you knew it would as well as I.

Bel Bree had met Dorothy first in silk-and-button errands
for her Aunt Blin's ' finishings,' at the thread-store where
Dot tended. (Such machine-sewing as they could obtain
Ray had done at home, since they came into the city ; and
Dot had taken this place at Brade & Matchett's.) Then
they came across each other in their waitings at the Public
Libraryi and so found out their near neighbourhood. At
last, growing intimate, Dorothy had introduced Bel to the

' WANTED ' 205

Chapel Bible class, and thence brought her into Desire's
especial little club at her own house.

After the travel-talk was over, — and they began with it
early, so that all may reach home at a safe hour in the even-
ing, — very often some one or two would linger a few moments
for some little talk of confidence or advice with Desire.
These girls brought their, plans to her ; their disappoint-
ments, their difficulties, their suggestions ; not one would
make a change, or take any new action, without telling
her. They knew she cared for them. It was the begin-
ning of all religion that she taught them in this faith, this
friendliness. Every soul wants some one to come to ; it is
easy to pass from the experience of human sympathy to the
thought of the Divine ; without it the Divine has never been
revealed.

One bright night in this October, Dot Ingraham waited,
letting her sister walk on with Frank Sunderline, who had
called for them, and asking Bel Bree to stop a minute and
go with her. 'Well take the car, presently,' she said to
Ray. ' We shall be at home almost as soon as you will.'

* It is about the shop work,' she said to Desire, who stepped
back into the library with her.

* I do not think I can do it much longer. I am pretty
strong for some things, but this terrible standing / I could
walk all day ; but cramped up behind those counters, and
then reaching up and down the boxes and things, — I feel
sometimes when I get through at night, as if my bones had
all been racked. I haven't told them at home, for fear they
would worry about me ; they think now IVe lost flesh, and I
suppose I have ; and I don't have much appetite ; it seems
dragged out of me. And then, — I can't say it before the
others, for they're in shops, some of 'em, and places may be
different; but it's such a window and counter parade, besides;
and they do look out for it. People stare in at the store as
they go by ; Margaret Shoey has the glove counter at that
end, and she knows Mr. Matchett keeps her there on pur-
pose to attract ; she sets herself up and takes airs upon it ;
and Sarah Cilley does everything she sees her do, and comes
in for the second-hand attention. Mr. Matchett asked me
the other day if I couldn't wear a panier, and do up my hair

2o6 THE OTHER GIRLS

a little more stylish ! I can't stay there ; it isn't fit for
girls ! '

Dot's cheeks flamed, and there were tears in her eyes.
Desire Ledwith stood with a thoughtful, troubled expression
in her own.

* There ought to be other ways,' she said. ' There ought
to be more sheltered work for girls^'

'There is,' said little Bel Bree from the doorway, 'in
houses. If I hadn't Aunt Blin, I'd go right into a family as
seamstress or anything. I don't believe in out-doors and
shops. I've; only lived in the city a little while, but I've seen
it. And just think of the streets and streets of nice houses,
where people live, and girls have to live with 'em, to do real
woman's home work ! And if s all given up to iforeign ser-
vants, and our girls go adrift, and live anyhow. 'Tain't
right ! '

'There is a good deal that isn't right about it,' said
Desire, gravely ; knowing better than Bel the difficulties in
the way of new domestic ideas. 'And a part of it is that the
houses aren't built, or the ways of living planned, for " our
girls," exactly. Our girls aren't happy in imderground
kitchens and sky bedrooms.'

' I don't know. They might as well be underground as in
some of those close, crowded shops. And their bedrooms
can't be much to compare, certain. I'm afraid they like the
crowds best. If they wanted to, and would work in, and try,
they might contrive. Things fix themselves accordingly,
after a while. Somebody's got to begin. I can't help thinking
about it'

Desire smiled.

' Your thinking may be a first sign of good times, little
Bel,' she said. 'Think on. That is the way everything
begins ; with a restlessness in someone or two heads about it
Perhaps that is just what you have come down from New
Hampshire for.'

' I don't know,' said Bel again. She began a good many
of her reflective, suggestive little speeches with that hesitating
feeler into the fog of social perplexity she essayed. ' They're
just as bad up there, now. They all get away to the towns,
and the trades, and the stores. They won't go int;o the
houses ; and they might have such good places ! '

'WANTED' 207

* You came yourself, you see ? '

*Yes. I wasn't contented. And things were particular with
me. And I had Aunt Blin. I don't want to go back, either.
But I can see how it is.'

* Things are particular with each one, in some sort or
another. That is what settles it, I suppose, and ought to.
The only thing Js to be sure that it is a right particular that
does it; that we don't let in any wrong particular, anywhere.
For you, Dorothy, I don't believe shop-life is the thing. You
have found it out. Why not change at once ? There is the
machine at home, and Ray is going to be busy in Neighbour
Street Won't her work naturally come to you?'

* There isn't much of it, and it is so uncertain. The shops
take up all the bulk of work nowadays ; everything is whole-
sale ; and I don't want to go into the rooms, if I call help
it. I don't like days' work, either. The fact is, I want a
quiet place, and the same thing. I like my own machine. I
would go with it into a family, if I could have my own room,
and be nice, and not have to eat with careless, common ser-
vants in. a dirty kitchen. Mother would spare me, — to a
real good situation ; and I would come home Sundays.'

'I see. What you want is somewhere, of course.
Wouldn't you advertise?'
' Would j^^«/'

* Yes, I think I would. Say exactly what you want, wages
and all. And put it into some family Sunday papei*, — ^the
*' Christian Register," for instance. Those things get read
over and over ; and the same paper lies about a week. In
the dailies, one thing crowds out another ; a new list every
night and morning. See here ; I'll write onfi now. Perhaps
it wouldn't be too late for this week. Would you go out of
town?'

^ WoiUdfCt I ? I think sometimes that's just what ails
me ; wanting to see soft roads and green grass, and door-
yards, and sun between the houses ! But I couldn't go far,
of course.'

Desire's pencil was flying over the paper.

' '' Wanted ; a permanent situation in a pleasant family,
as seamstress, by a young girl used to all kinds of sewing,
who will bring her own machine. Would like a room to

2o8 THE OTHER GIRLS

herself, and to have her meals orderly and comfortable,
whether with the family or otherwise. Wages " — What ? '

' By the day, I could get a dollar and a quarter, at least ;
but for a real good home-place, I'd go for four dollars a
week.'

( u Wages, 1^4.00 per week. A little way out of town pre-
ferred." There ! There are such places, and why shouldn't
one come to you ? Take that down to the " Register" office
to-morrow morning, and have it put in twice, unless stopped.'

* Thank you. It's all easy enough, Miss Ledwith. Why
didn't I work it out myself?'

* It isn't quite worked out yet But things always look
clearer, somehow, through two pairs of eyes. Good-night.
Let me know what you hear about it'

' She'll surprise some family with such a seamstress as they
read about,' said Bel Bree, on the door-step. * I should like
to astonish people, sometime, with a heavenly kind of general
house-work.'

'That was a good idea of yours about the Sunday paper,*
said Sylvie, as she and Hazel and Desire went back into the
library to put away the books. * But what when the com-
mon sort pick up the dodge, and the weeklies get full of
" Wanted " ? Nothing holds out fresh, very long.'

' There ought to be,' said Desire, ' some filtered process
for these things; some way of sifting and certifying. A
bureau of mutual understanding between the " real folks " —
employers and employed. I believe it might be. There
ought to be for this, and for many things, a fellowship or-
ganised, between women of different outward degree. And
something will happen, sooner or later, to bring it about
A money crisis, perhaps, to throw these girls out of shop-em-
ployment, and to make heads of households look into ways
of managing. A mutual need, — or the seeing of it. The
need is now ; these girls — half of them — want homes, more
than anything ; and the homes are suffering for the help of
just such girls.'

* Why don't you edit a paper. Desire ? The " Fellowship
Register," or the "Domestic Intelligencer," or something!
And keep lists of all the nice, real housekeepers, and the
nice, real, willing girls ? '

' WANTED ' 209

*That isn't a bad notion, Hazie. Your notions never are.
Maybe that is wha^ is waiting for you. Just cover up that
''raised Switzerland," will you, and bring it over here ? And
roll up the " Course of the Rhine," and set it in the comer.
There ; now we may put out the gas. Sylvie, has your
mother had her fresh camomile tea ?'

The three girls bade each other good-night at the stairs ;
just where Desire had stood once, and put her arms about
Uncle Titus's neck for the first time. She often thought of
it now, when they went up after the pleasant evenings, and
came down in the bright moi:nings to their cheery break-
fasts. She liked to stop on just that step. Nobody knew
all it meant to her, when she did. There are places in every
dwelling that keep such secrets for one heart and memory
alone.

Yes, indeed. Sylvie was happy now. All her pretty
pictures, and little brackets, and her mother's stands and
vases in the grey parlour, were hung with the lovely,
wreathing, fairy stems of star-leaved, blossomy fern; and
the sweet, dry scent was a perpetual subtle message. That
day in the train from East Keaton was a day to pervade the
winter, as this woodland breath pervaded the old city house.
Sylvie could wait with that, sure that, sometime, more was
coming. She could wait better than Rodney. Because, —
she knew she was waiting, and satisfied to wait How did
Rodney know that ?

It was what he kept asking his Aunt Euphrasia in his
frequent, boyish, yet most manly, letters. And she kept
answering, ' You need not fear. I think I understand
Sylvie. I can see. If there were anything in the way, I
would tell you.'

But at last she had to say, — not ' I think I understand
Sylvie,' — but * I understand girls, Rodney. I am a woman,
remember. I have been a girl, and I have waited. I have
waited all my life. The right girls can.'

And Rodney said, tossing up the letter with a shout, and
catching it with a loving grasp between his hands again, —

* Good for you, you dear, brave, blessed ace of hearts in
a world where hearts are trumps I If you ain't one of the
right old girls, then they don't make 'em, and never did ! '

2IO THE OTHER GIRLS

CHAPTER XXL

VOICES AND VISIONS.

Madame Bylles herself walked into the great work-room
of Mesdames Fillmer & Bylles, one Saturday morning.

Madame Bylles was a lady of great girth and presence.
If Miss Tonker were sub-aristocratic, Madame Bylles was
ahnost super-aristocratic, so cumulative had been the effect
upon her style and manner of constant professional contact
with the ^lite. Carriages had rolled up to her, until she had
got the roll of them into her very voice. Airs and graces
had swept in and out of her private audience-room, that had
not been able to take all of themselves away again. As the
very dust grows golden and precious where certain work-
manship is carried on, the touch and step and speech of
those who had come ordering, consulting, coaxing, be-
seeching, to her apartments, had filled them with infini-
tesimal particles of a sublime efflorescence, by which the air
itself in which they floated became — not the air of shop or
business or down-town street — ^but the air of drawing-room,
and bon-ton, and Beacon Hill or the New Land.

And Madame Bylles breathed it all the time; she dwelt
in the courtly contagion. When she came in among her
work-people, it was an advent of awe. It was as if all the
elegance that had ever been made up there came floating
and spreading and shining in, on one portly and magnificent
person.

But when Madame Bylles came in, in one of her majestic
hurries ! Then it was as if the globe itself had orders to
move on a little faster, and make out the year in two hundred
and eighty days or so, and she was appointed to see it
done.

She was in one of these grand and grave accelerations
this morning. Miss Pashaw's marriage was fixed for a fort-
night earlier than had been intended, business calling Mr.
Soldane abroad. There were dresses to be hurried ; work

VOICES AND VISIONS 211

for over-hours was to be given out. Miss Tonker was to
use every exertion; temporary hands, if reliable, might be
employed. All must be ready by Thursday next ; Madame
Bylles had given her word for it.

The manner in which she loftily transmitted this grand
intelligence, warm from the high-bom lips that had favoured
her with the confidence, — the air of intending it for Miss
Tonker's secondarily distinguished ear alone, whilst the car-
riage-roll in her accents bore it to the farthest corner in the
room, where the meekest little woman sat basting — ^these
things are indescribable. But they are in human nature :
you can call them up and scrutinise them for yourself.

Madame Bylles receded like a tidal wave, having heaved
up, and changed, and overwhelmed all things.

A great buzz succeeded her departure; Miss Tonkers
followed her out upon the landing.

' 111 speak for that cashmere peignoir that is just cut out.
ni make it nights, and earn me an ostrich band for my hat,'
said Elise Mokey.

One spoke for one thing ; one another ; they were claimed
beforehand, in this fashion, by a kind of workwomen's code ;
as publishers advertise foreign books in press, and keep the
first right by courtesy.

Miss Proddle stopped her machine at last, and caught the
news in her slow fashion hind side before.

' We might some of us have overwork, I should think ;
shouldn't you ? ' she asked, blandly, of Miss Bree.

Aunt Blin smiled. * They've been squabbling over it these
five minutes,' she replied.

Aunt Blin was sure of some particular finishing, that none
could do like her precise old self.

Kate Sencerbox jumped up impatiently, reaching over for
some fringe.

' I shall have to give it up,' she whispered emphatically
into Bel Bree's ear. ' It's no. use your asking me to go to
Chapel any more. I ain't sanctified a grain. I did begin to
think there was a kind of work of grace begun in me, — but
I cafi^t stand Miss Proddle 1 What are people made to
strike ten for, always, when it's eleven ?'

' I think we are all striking twelve^ said Bel Bree. ' One's

212 THE OTHER GIRLS

too fast, and another's too slow, but the sun goes round
exactly the same.'
Miss Tonker came back, and the talk hushed.

* Clock struck one, and down they run, hickory, dickpry,
dock,' said Miss Proddle, deliberately, so that her voice
brought up the subsiding rear of sound and was heard alone.

* What under the sun ? ' exclaimed Miss Tonker, with a
gaze of mingled amazement, mystification, and contempt, at
the poor old maiden making such unwonted noise.

' Yes'm,' said Kate Sencerbox. * It is " under the sun," that
we're talking about ; the way things turn round, and clocks
strike ; some too fast, and some too slow ; and — ^whether
there's anything new under the sun. I think there is. Miss
Proddle made a bright speech, that's alL'

Miss Tonker, utterly bewildered, took refuge in solemn
and supercilious disregard ; as if she saw the joke, and con-
sidered it quite beneath remark.

'You will please resimoie your work, and remember the
rules,' she said, and sailed down upon the cutters' table.

There was a certain silk evening dress, of singular and in-
describably lovely tint, — a tea-rose pink ; just the colour of
the blush and creaminess that mingle themselves into such
delicious anonymousness in the exquisite flower. It was all
puffed and fluted till it looked as if it had really blossomed
with uncounted curving petals, that showed in their tender
convolutions each possible deepening and brightening of its
wonderful hue.

It looked fragrant. It conveyed a subtle sense of flavour.
It fed and provoked every perceptive sense.

It was not a dress to be hurried with ; every quill and
gather of its trimming must be * set just so ; ' and there was
still one flounce to be made, and these others were only
basted, as also the corsage.

After the hours were up that afternoon, Miss Tonker called
Aunt Blin aside. She uncovered the large white box in
which it lay, unfinished.

'You have a nice room, Miss Bree. Can you take this
home and finish it,— by Wednesday? In overhours, I
mean ; I shall want you here daytimes, as usual. It has
been tried on \ all but for the hanging of the skirt ; you can

VOICES AND VISIONS 213

take the measures from the white one. That I shall finish
myself.'

Aunt Blin's voice trembled with humble ecstasy as she
answered. She thanked Miss Tonker in a tone timid with
an apprehension of some possible unacceptableness, which
should disturb or change the favouring grace.

' Certainly, ma'am. Ill spread a sheet on the floor, and
put a white cloth on the table. Thank you, ma'am. Yes ; I
have a nice room, and nothing gets meddled with. ItTl be
quite safe there* I'm sure I'm no less than happy to be
allowed. You're very kind, ma'am.'

Miss Tonker said nothing at all to the meekly nervous
outpouring. She did not snub her, however ; that was some-
thing.

Miss Bree and her niece, between them, carried home the
large box.

On the way, a dream ran through the head of Bel. She
could not help it

To have this beautiful dress in the house, — perhaps to
have to stand up and be tried to, for the fall of its delicate,
rosy trail ; with the white cloth on the floor, and the bright
light all through the room, — why it would be almost like a
minute of a ball ; and what if the door should be open, and
somebody should happen to go by, upstairs ? If she could
be so, and be seen so, just one minute, in that blush-coloured
silk ! She should like to look like that, just once, t o s omebody !

Ah, little Bel ! behind all her cosy, practical living— all her
busy work and contentedness — all her bright notions of what
might be possible, for the better, in things that concerned
her class, — she had her little, vague, bewildering flashes of
vision, in which she saw impossible things ; things that might
happen in a book, things that must be so beautiful if they
ever did really happen !

A step went up and down the stairs and along the passage
by her aunf s room, day by day, that she had learned to
notice every time it came. A face had glanced in upon her
now and then, when the door stood open for coolness in the
warm September weather, when they had been obliged to
have a flie to make the tea, or to heat an iron to press out
seams in work that they were doing. One or two days of

214 THE OTHER GIRLS

each week, they had taken work home. On those days, they
did, perhaps, their own little washing or ironing, besides ;
sewing between whiles, and taking turns, and continuing at
their needles far on into the night. Once Mr. Hewland had
come in, to help Aunt Blin with a blind that was swinging by
a single hinge, and which she was trying, against a boisterous
wind, to reset with the other. After that, he had always
spoken to them when he met them. He had opened and
shut the street-door for them, standing back, courteously, with
his hat in his hand, to let them pass.

Aunt Blin, — dear old simple, kindly-hearted Aunt BHn,
who believed cats and birds, — her cat and bird, at least, —
might be thrown trustfully into each other's company, if only
she impressed it sufficiently upon the quadruped's mind from
the beginning, that the bird was *very, very precious/ —
thought Mr. Hewland was * such a nice young man.'

And so he was. A nice, genial, well-meaning, well-bred
gentleman ; above anything ignoble, or consciously culpable,
or commpn. His danger lay in his higher tendencies. He
had artistic tastes ; he was a lover of all grace and natural
sweetness ; no line of beauty could escape him. More than that,
he drew towards all that was most genuine ; he cared nothing
for the elegant artificialities among which his social position
placed him. He had been singularly attracted by this little
New Hampshire girl, fresh and pretty as a wild rose, and full
of bright, quaint ways and speech, of which he caught glimpses
and fragments in their near neighbourhood. Now and then,
from her open window up to his, had come her gay, sweet
laugh ; or her raised, gleeful tone, as she said some funny,
quick, shrewd thing in her original fashion to her aunt

Through the month of August, while work was slack, and
the Hewland family was away travelling, and other lodgers'
rooms were vacated, the Brees had been more at home, and
Morris Hewland had been more in his rooms above, than
had been usual at most times. The music mistress had taken
a vacation, and gone into the country; only old Mr. Sparrow,
lame with one weak ankle, hopped up and down ; and the
spare, odd-faced landlady glided about the passages with her
prim profile always in the same pose, reminding one of a
badly-made rag-doll, of which the nose, chin, and chest are

VOICES AND VISIONS 215

in one invincible flat line, interrupted feebly by an unsuc-
cessful hint of drawing in at the throat.

Mr. Hewland liked June for his travels; and July and
August, when everybody was out of the way, for his quiet
summer work.

The Hewlands called him odd, and let him go ; he stayed
at home sometimes, and he happened in and out ; they knew
where to find him, and there was ' no harm in Morris but his
artistic peculiarities.'

He had secured in these out-of-the-way lodgings in Leicester
Place, one of the best north lights that could be had in the
city ; he would not take a room among a lot of others in a
Studio Building. So he worked up his studies, painted his
pictures, let nobody come near him except as he chose to
bring them, and when he wanted anything of the world, went
out into the world and got it.

Now, something had come in here close to him, which
brought him a certain sense of such a world as he could not
go out into at will, to get what he wanted. A world of sim-
plicities, of blessed contents, of unworn, joyous impulses, of
little new, unceasing spontaneities ; a world that he looked
into, as we used to do at Sattler's Cosmoramas, through the
merest peepholes, and comprehended by the merest hints ; but
which lie presence of this girl under the roof with himself
as surely revealed to him as the wind-flower reveals the spring.

On her part, Bel Bree got a glimpse, she knew not how, of
a world above and beyond her own ; a world of beauty, of
power, of reach and elevation, in which people like Morris
Hewland dwelt. His step, his voice, his words now and
then to the friend or two whom he had the habit of bringing
in with him, — the mere knowledge that he * made pictures,*
such pictures as she looked at in the windows and in art-
dealers' rooms, where any shop-girl, as freely as the most
elegant connoisseur, can go in and delight her eyes, and
inform her perceptions, — ^these, without the face even, which
had turned its magnetism straight upon her's only once or
twice, and whose revelation was that of a life related to
things wide and full and manifold, — gave her the stimulating
sense of a something to which she had not come, but to
which she felt a strange belonging.

2i6 THE OTHER GIRLS

Beside,— alongside — in each mind, was the undeveloped
mystery; the spell under which a man receives such intui-
tions through a woman's presence, — a woman through a
man's. Yet these two individuals were not, therefore, going
to be necessary to each other, in the plan of God. Other
things might show that they were not meant, in rightness, for
each other ; they represented mutually, something that each
life missed; but the something was in no special companion-
ship; it was a great deal wider and higher than that. They
might have to learn that it was so, nevertheless, by some
briefly painful process of experience. If in this process they
should fall into mistake and wrong, — ah, there would come
the experience beyond the experience, the depth they were
not meant to sound, yet which, if they let their game of life
run that way, they could not get back from but through the
uttermost They must play it out ; the move could not be
taken back,— yet awhile. The possible better combinations
are in God's knowledge; how He may ever reset the pieces,
and give his good chances again, remains the hidden hope,
resting upon the Christ that is in the heart of Him.

One morning Morris Hewland had come up the stairs with
a handful of tuberoses ; he was living at home, then, through
the pleasant September, at his father's country place, whence
the household would soon remove to the city for the winter.

Miss Bree's door was open. She was just replacing her
door-mat, which she had been shaking out of the entry
window. She had an old green veil tied down over her head
to keep the dust off; nobody could suspect any harm of a
wish or a willingness to have a word with her; Morris Hew-
land could not have suspected it of himself, if he had indeed
got so far as to investigate his passing impulses. There was
something pitiful in the contrast, perhaps, of the pure, fresh,
exquisite blossoms, and the breath of sweet air he and they
brought with them in their swift transit from the places where
it blessed all things to the places where so much languished
in the need of it, not knowing, even, the privation. The
old, trodden, half-cleansed door-mat in her hands,— the just-
created beauty in his. He stopped, and divided his handful.

' Here, Miss Bree, — you would like a piece of the country,
I imagine, this morning ! I couldn't have come in without it.

VOICES AND VISIONS 217

The voice rang blithe and bright into the room where Bel
sat, basting machine work ; the eyes went after the voice.

The light from the east window was full upon the shining
hair, the young, unworn outlines, the fresh, pure colour of the
skin. Few city beauties could bear such morning light as
that Nothing but the morning in the face can meet it.

Morris Hewland lifted his hat, and bowed towards the
young girl, silently. Then he passed on, up to his room.
Bel heard his step, back and forth, overhead.

The tuberoses were put into a clear, plain tumbler. Bel
would not have them in the broken vase ; she would not have
them in a blue vase, at all. She laid a white napkin over the
red of the tablecloth, and set them on it. The perfume rose
from them, and spread all through the room.

' I am so glad we have work at home to-day,' said Bel.

There had been nothing but little things like these ; but
into Bel's head, as she and Aunt Blin carried home the tea-
blush silk, and laid it by with care in its white box upon the
sofa-end, came that little wish, with a spring and a heart-
beat, — * If she might have it on for a minute, and if in that
minute he might happen to come by ! '

She did not think she was planning for it ; but when on
the Tuesday evening the step went down the stairs at eight
o'clock, while they sat busily working, each at a sleeve, by
the drop-light over the white-covered table, a little involun-
tary calculation ran through her thoughts.

* He always comes back by eleven. We shall have two
hours' work — or more, — on this, if we don't hurry ; and it's
miserable to hurry ! '

They stitched on, comfortably enough ; yet the sleeves
were finished sooner than she expected. Before nine o'clock.
Aunt Blin was sewing them in. Then Bel wanted a drink
of water ; then they could not both get at the waist together ;
there was no need.

* 111 do it,' said Bel, out of her conscience, with a jump of
fright as she said it, lest Aunt Blin should take her at her
word, and begin gauging and plaiting the skirt.

* No, you rest. I shall want you by and by, for a figure.'

* May I have it all on ? ' says Bel eagerly. ' Do, Auntie !
I should just like to be in such a dress once — a^minute ! '

2i8 THE OTHER GIRLS

* I don't see any reason why not. You couldn't do any
hurt to it, if 'twas made for a queen,' responded Aunt Blin.

* I'll do up my hair on the top of my head,' said Bel.

And forthwith, at the far end of the room, away from the
delicate robe and its scattered material, she got out her
combs and brushes, and let down her gleaming brown hair.

It took different shades, from umber to almost golden, this
' funny hair ' of hers, as she called it. She thought it was
because she had faded it, playing out in the sun when she
was a child ; but it was more like having got the shine into
it It did not curl, or wave ; but it grew in lovely arches,
with roots even set, around her temples and in the curves of
her neck ; and now, as she combed it up in a long, beautiful
mass, over her grasping hand, raising it with each sweep
higher towards the crown of her pretty head, all this vigorous,
beautiful growth showed itself, and marked with its shadowy
outline the dainty shapings. One twist at the top for the
comb to go in, and then she parted it in two, and coiled it
like a golden-bronze cable ; and laid it round and round till
the foremost turn rested like a wreath midway about her
head. She pulled three fresh geranium leaves and a pink-
white umbel of blossom from the plant in the window, and
tucked the cluster among the soft front locks against the coil
above the temple.

Then she took off the loose wrapping-sack she had thrown
over her shoulders, washed her fingers at the basin, and came
back to her seat under the lamp.

Aunt Blin looked up at her and smiled. It was like having
it all herself, — this youth and beauty, — to have it belonging
to her, and showing its charming ways and phases, in little
Bel. Why shouldn't the child, with her fair, sweet freshness,
and the deep-green, velvety leaves making her look already
like a rose against which they leaned themselves, have on
this delicate rose dress ? If things stayed, or came, where
they belonged, to whom should it more fittingly fall to wear
it than to her ?

Bel watched the clock and Aunt Blin's fingers.

It was ten when the plaits and gathers were laid, and the
skirt basted to its band for the trying. Bel was dilatory one
minute, and in a hurry the next.

VOICES AND VISIONS 219

* It would be done too soon ; but he might come in early ;
and, O dear, they hadn't thought, — there was that puffing to
put round the corsage, bertha-wise, with the blonde edging.
It was all ready ; give it to her.'

'Now!'

The wonderful, glistening, aurora-like robe goes over the
head; sh* stands in the midst, with the tender glowing
colour sweeping out from her upon the white sheet pinned
down above the carpet.

Was that anybody coming?

Aunt Blin left her for an instant to put up the window-top
that had been open to cool the lighted and heated room.
Bel might catch cold, standing like this.

* O, it is so warm, Auntie ! We can't have everything shut
up ! ' And with this swift excuse instantly suggesting itself
and making justification to her deceitful little heart that lay
in wait for it, Bel sprang to the opposite comer- where the
doorway opened full towards her, diagonally commanding
the room. She set it hastily just a hand's length ajar.
* There is no wind in the entry, and nobody will come,' she
said.

When she was only excitedly afraid there wouldn't! I
cannot justify little Bel. I do not try to.

'Now, see ! isn't it beautiful ? '

' It sags- just a crumb, here at the left,' said Aunt Blin,
poking and stooping under Bel's elbow. ' No ; it is only a
baste give way. You shouldn't have sprung so, child.'

The bare neck and the dimpled arms showed from among
the cream-pink tints like the high white lights upon the rose.
Bel had not looked in the glass yet : Aunt Blin was busy,
and she really had not thought of it ; she was happy just in
being in that beautiful raiment — in the heart of its colour and
shine ; feeling its softly rustling length float away from her,
and reach out radiantly behind. What is there about that
sweeping and trailing that all women like, and that becomes
them so ? That even the little child pins a shawl about her
waist and walks to and fro, looking over her shoulder, to get
a sensation of.?

The door did shut, below. A step did come up the
stairs, with a few light springs.

220 THE OTHER GIRLS

Suddenly Bel was ashamed !

She did not want it, now that it had come ! She had
set a dreadful trap for herself !

* O, Aimt Blin, let me go ! Put something over me ! '
she whispered.

But Aimt Blin was down on the floor, far behind her,
drawing out and arranging the slope of the train^ measur-
ing from hem to band with her professional eye.

The footstep suddenly checked ; then, as if with as swift
bethinking, it went by. But through that door ajar, in that
bright light that revealed the room, Morris Hewland had
been smitten with the vision ; had seen little Bel Bree in all
the possible flush of fair array, and marvellous blossom of
consummate, adorned loveliness.

Somehow, it broke down the safeguard he had had.

In what was Bel Bree different, really, from women who
wore such robes as that, with whom he had danced and
chatted in drawing-rooms ? Only in being a thousand times
fresher and prettier.

After that, he began to make reasons for speaking to them.
He brought Aunt Blin a lot of illustrated papers ; he lent
them a stereoscope, with Alpine and Italian views; he brought
down a picture of his own, one day, to show them ; before
October was out, he had spent an evening in Aunt Blin's
room, reading aloud to them * Mir^io.

Among the strange metaphysical doublings which human
nature discovers in itself, there is such a fact, not seldom
experienced, as the dreaming of a dream.

It is one thing to dream utterly, so that one believes one is
awake ; it is another to sleep in one's dream, and in a vision
give way to vision. It is done in sleep, it is also done in life.

This was what Bel Bree— and it is with her side of the
experience that I have business — was in danger now of doing.

It is done in life, as to many forms of living — as to religion,
as to art. People are religious, not infrequently because they
are in love with the idea of being so, not because they are
simply and directly devoted to God. They are aesthetic,
because, ' The Beautiful ' is so beautiful, to see and to talk
of, and they choose to affect artistic having and doing ; but
they have not come even into that sheepfold by the door, by

VOICES AND VISIONS 221

the honesty inevitable pathway that their nature took because
it must^ — by the entrance that it found through a force of
celestial urging and guidance that was behind them all the
while, though they but half knew it or imderstood.

Women fall in love that way, so often ! It is a lovely thing to
be loved ; there is new living, which seems to them rare and
grand, into which it offers to lift them up. They fall into a dream
about a dream ; they do not lay them down to sleep and give
the Lord their souls to keep, tiU He shall touch their trustful
rest with a divine fire, and waken them into his apocalypse.

It was this atmosphere in which Morris Hewland lived,
and which he brought about him to transfuse the heavier air
of her lowly living, that bewildered BeL And she knew that
she was bewildered. She knew that it was the poetic side of
her nature that was stirred, excited ; not the real deep,
woman's heart of her that found, suddenly, its satisfying. If
women will look, they can see this.

She knew — she had found out — that she was a fair picture
in the artist's eyes ; that the perception keen to discover and
test and analyse all harmonies of form and tint, — ^holding a
hallowed, mysterious kinship in this power to the Power that
had made and spoken by them, — turned its search upon her,
and found her lovely in the study. It was as if a daisy
bearing the pure message and meaning of the heavenly could
thrill vdth the consciousness of its transmission ; could feel
the exaltation of fulfilling to a human soul, grand in its far
up mystery and waiting upon God, — one of his dear ideas.

There was something holy in the spirit with which she
thus realised her possession of maidenly beauty ; her gift of
mental charm and fitness even ; it was the countersign by
which she entered into this realm of which Morris Hewland
had the freedom ; it belonged to her also, — she to it ; she
had received her first recognition. It was a look back into
Paradise for this Eve's daughter, bom to labour, but with a
reminiscence in her nature out of which she had built all her
sweetest notions of being, doing, abiding ; from which came
the home-picture, so simple in its outlines, but so rich and
gentle in all its significance, that she had drawn to herself as
'her wish'; the thing she would give most, and do most, to
have come true.

222 THE OTHER GIRLS

But all this was not necessarily love, even in its beginning,
— though she might come for a while to fancy it so, — for
this one man. It was a thing between her own life and the
Maker of it ; an unfolding of herself towards, that which
waited for her in Him, and which she should surely come
to, whatever she might grasp at mistakenly and miss upon
the way.

Morris Hewland — young, honest-hearted, but full of a
young man's fire and impulse, of an artist's susceptibility to
outward beauty, of the ready delight of educated taste in
fresh, natural, responsive cleverness — was treading danger-
ous ground.

He, too, knew that he was bewildered ; and that if he
opened his eyes he should see no way out of it. Therefore
he shut his eyes and drifted on.

Aunt Blin, with her simplicity, — her incapacity of believing,
though there might be wrong and mischief in the world, that
anybody she knew could ever do it, sat there between them,
the most bewildered, the most inwardly and utterly befooled
of the three.

CHAPTER XXII.

BOX FIFTY-TWO.

In the midst of it all, she went and caught a horrible cold.

Aunt Blin, I mean.

It was all by wearing her india-rubbers a week too long, a
week after she had found the heels were split ; and in that
week there came a heavy rain-storm.

She had to stay at home now. Bel went to the rooms
and brought back button-holes for her to make. She could
not do much ; she was feverish and languid, and her eyes
suffered. But she liked to see something in the basket ;
she was always going to be 'well enough to-morrow.' When
the work had to be returned, Bel hurried, and did the button-
holes of an evening.

Mr. Hewland brought grapes, and oranges, and flowers to
Miss Bree. Bel fetched home little presents of her own to
her aunt, making a pet of her : ice-cream in a paper cone.

BOX FIFTY-TWO 223

horehound candy, once, a tumbler of black currant jelly.
But that last was very dear. If Aunt Blin had eaten much
of other things, they could not have afforded it, for there were
only half earnings now.

To-morrow kept coming, but Miss Bree kept on not getting
any better. ' She didn't see the reason,' she said ; * she
never had a cold hang on so. She believed she'd better go
out and shake it off. If she could have rode down-town
she would, but somehow she didn't seem to have the strength
to walk.'

The reason she ' couldn't have rode,' was because all the
horses were sick. It was the singular epidemic of 1872.
There were no cars, no teams ; the queer sight was presented
in a great city, of the driveways as clear as the sidewalks ;
of nobody needed to guard the crossings or unsnarl the
* blocks ; ' of stillness like Sunday, day after day : of men
harnessed into waggons, — eight human beings drawing, slowly
and heavily, what any poor old prickle-ribs of a horse, that
had life left in him at all, would have trotted cheerfully off
with. A lady's trunk was a cartload ; and a lady's trunk
passing through the streets was a curiosity; you could
scarcely get one carried for love or money.

Aunt Blin was a good deal excited ; she always was by
everything that befell ' her Boston.' She w6uld sit by the
window in her blanket shawl, and peer down the Place to
see the ma^-carts and express waggons creep slowly by, along
Tremont Street, to and from the railways. She was proud
for the men who turned to and did quadruped work with a
will in the emergency, and so took hold of its sublimity ; she
was proud of the poor horses, standing in suffering but royal
seclusion in their stables, with hostlers sitting up nights for
them, and the world and all its business ' seeing how it could
get along without them ; ' she was proud of all this crowd of
business that had, by hook or by crook (literally, now), to be
done.

She wanted the evening paper the minute it came. She
and the music mistress took the * Transcript ' between them,
and had the first reading weeks about. This was her week ;
she held herself lucky.

The epizootic was like the war : we should have to subside

224 THE OTHER GIRLS

into common items that would not seem like news at all when
that was over.

We all know, now, what the news was after the epizootic.

Meanwhile Aunt Blin believed, * on her conscience,' she
had got the epidemic herself.

Bel had worked hard at the rooms this week, and late at
home in the evenings. Some of the girls lived out at the
Highlands, and some in South Boston; there were days
when they could not get in from these districts; for such as
were on the spot there was double press and hurry. And it
was right in the midst of fall and winter work. Bel earned
twelve dollars in six days, and got her pay.

On Saturday night she brought home four Chater's crum-
pets, and a pint of oysters. She stewed the oysters in a
porringer out of which everything came nicer than out of any
other utensil. While they were stewing, she made a bit of
butter up into a 'pat,' and stamped it with the star in the
middle of the pressed glass saltcellar ; she set the table near
the fire, and laid it out in a specially dainty way ; then she
toasted the muffins, and it was 'past seven o'clock before all
was done.

Aunt Blin sat by, and watched and smelled. She was in
no hurry ; two senses at a time were enough to have filled.
She had finished the paper, — it was getting to be an old and
much rehashed story, now, — and had sent it down to Miss
Smalley. It would be hers first, now, for a week. Very
well, the excitement was over. That was all she knew
about it.

In the privacy and security of her own room, and with
muffins and oysters for tea. Aunt Blin took out her upper
teeth, that she might eat comfortably. Poor Aunt Blin ! she
showed her age and her thinness so. She had fallen away a
good deal since she had been sick. But she was getting
better. On Monday morning, she thought she would cer-
tainly be able to go out All she had to do now was to be
careful of her cough ; and Bel had just bought her a new
pair of rubbers.

Bartholomew had done his watching and smelling, like-
wise ; he had made all he could be expected to of that limited
enjoyment Now he walked round the table with an air of

BOX FIFTY-TWO 225

consciousness that supper was served. He sat by his mis-
tress's chair, lifted one paw with well-bred expressiveness,
stretching out the digits of it as a dainty lady extends her
lesser fingers when she lifts her cup, or breaks a bit of bread.
It was a delicate suggestion of exquisite appreciation, and of
most excellent manners. Once he began a whine, but recol-
lected himself and suppressed it, as the dainty lady might a
yawn.

Aunt Blin gave him two oysters, and three spoonfuls of
broth in his own saucer, before she helped herself. After all,
she ate in her turn very little more. It was hardly worth
while to have made a business of being comfortable.

* I don't think they have such good oysters as they used
to,' she remarked, stepping over her s'es in a very carpeted
and stocking-footed way.

* Perhaps I didn't put enough seasoning ' — Bel began, but
was interrupted in the middle of her reply.

The big bell two squares off clanged a heavy stroke, caught
up on the echo by others that sounded smaller, farther and
farther away, making their irregular, yet familiar phrase and
cadence on the air.

It was the fire alarm.

' H — zh ! Hark ! ' Aunt Blin changed the muffled but
eager monosyllable to a sharper one ; and being reminded,
felt in her lap, under her napkin, for her * omamients,' as
Bel called them.

But she counted the strokes before she put them in,
nodding her head, and holding up her finger to Bel and
Bartholomew for silence. Everything stopped where it was
with Miss Bree when the fire alarm sounded.

One — two — three — four — five.

* In the city,' said Aunt Blin, with a certain weird, un-
conscious satisfaction ; and whipped the porcelains into their
places before the second tolling should begin. They were
like Pleasant Riderhood's back hair : she was all twisted up^
now, and ready.

One — two.

*That ain't fur off. Down Bedford Street way. Give me
the fire-book, and my glasses.'

226 THE OTHER GIRLS

She turned the folds of the card with one hand, and ad-
justed her spectacles with the other.

* Bedford and Lincoln. Why, that's close by where Miss
Proddle boards !*

'That's the box. Auntie. You always forj^et the fire isn't
in the box.'

* Well, it will be if they don't get along with their steamers.
I ain't heard one go by yet.'

* They haven't any horses, you know.'

* Hark ! there's one now ! O, do hush ! There's the bell
again!'

Bel was picking up the tea-things for washing. She set
down the little pile which she had gathered, went to the
window, and drew up the blind.

* My gracious ! And there's the fire ! ' .

It shone up, red, into the sky, from over the tall roofs.
Ten strokes from the deep, deliberate bells.

* There comes Miss Smalley, todillating up to see,' said
Bel, excitedly.

* And the people are just rushing along Tremont Street !'

* Can you see ? ' asked Miss Smalley, bustling in like the
last little belated hen at feeding-time, with a look on all sides
at once to discover where the com might be.

* Is^t it big, O ? ' And she stood up, tiptoe, by the window,
as if that would make any comparative difference between
her height and that of Hotel Devereux, across the square ;
or as if she could reach up farther with her eyes after the
great flashes that streamed into the heavens.

Again the smiting clang, — repeated, solemn, exact. No
flurry m those measured sounds, although their continuance
tolled out a city's doom.

Twice twelve.

' There goes Mr. Sparrow/ said the music mistress* as the
watchmaker's light, unequal hop came over the stairs. ' I
suppose he can see from his window pretty near where it is.'

A slight, dull colour came up into the angles of the little
lady's face, as she alluded to the upper lodger's room, for
there was a tacit impression in the house — and she knew it —
that if Miss Smalley and Mr. Sparrow had been thrown

BOX FIFTY-TWO 227

together earlier in life, it would have been very suitable; and
that even now it might not be altogether too late.

Another step went springing down. Bel knew that, but
she said nothing.^

* Don't you think we might go out to the end of the street,
and see?' suggested Miss Smalley.

Bel had on hat and waterproof in a moment.

* Don't you stir, Auntie, to catch cold, now ! We'll be back
directly.'

Miss Smalley was already in her room below, snatching
up hood and shawl.

Down the Place they went, 'and on, out into the broad
street Everybody was running one way, — northward. They
followed, hurrying towards the great light, glowing and flash-
ing before them.

From every westward avenue came more men, speeding in
ever thickening lines verging to one centre. Like streams
into a river channel, they poured around the comers into
Essex Street, at last, filling it from wall to wall, — a human
torrent.

* This is as far as we can go,' Miss Smalley said, stopping
in one of the doorways of Boylston Market. A man in a
blouse stood there, ordering the driver of a cart.

* Where is the fire, sir?* asked Miss Smalley, with a lady-
like air of not being used to speak to men in the street, but
of this being an emergency.

* Comer of Kingston and Summer; great granite ware-
house, five stories high,' said the man in the blouse, civilly,
and proceeding to finish his order, which was his own busines
at the moment, though Boston was buming.

The two women turned round and went back. The heavy
bells were striking three times twelve.

A boy rushed past them at the comer by the great florist's
shop. He was going the other way from the fire, and was
impatient to do his errand and get back. He had a basket
of roses to carry; ordered for some one to whom it would
come, — ^the last conmiission of that sort done that night,
perhaps,— as out of the very smoke and terror of the hour; a
singular lovely message of peace; of the blessed thoughts
that live between human hearts, though a world were in

228 THE OTHER GIRLS

ashes. All through the wild night, those exquisite' buds
would be silently unfolding their gracious petals. How
strange the bloomed- out roses would look to-morrow !

All the house in Leicester Place was astir, and recklessly
mixed up, when Miss Smalleyand Bel Bree came back. The
landlady and her servant were up in Mr. Sparrow's room,
calling to Miss Bree below. The whole place was full of red
fierce light.

Aunt Blin, faithful to Bel's parting order, stood in the
spirit of an unrelieved sentinel, though the whole army had
broken camp, keeping herself steadfastly safe, in her own
doorway. To be sure^ there was a draught there, but it was
not her fault.

' I must go up and see it,' she said eagerly, when Bel ap-
peared. Bel drew her into the room, put her first into a gray
hospital dressing-gown, then into a waterproof, and after all
covered her up with a striped blue and white bed comforter.
She knew she would keep dodging in and out, and she might
as well go where she would stay quiet.

And so these three women went up-stairs, where they had
never been before. The door of Mr. Hewland's room was
open. A pair of slippers lay in the middle of the floor ; a
newspaper had fluttered into a light heap, like a broken roof,
beside them; a dressing-gown was thrown over the back of a
chair.

Bel came last, and shut that door softly as she passed, not
letting her eyes intrude beyond the first involuntary glimpse.
She was maidenly shy of the place she had never seen, —
where she had heard the footsteps go in and out, over her
head.

The five women crowded about and into Mr. Sparrow's
little dormer window. Miss Smalley lingered to notice the
little black teapot on the grate-bar, where a low fire was
sinking lower, — the faded cloth on the table, and the empty
cup upon it, — the pipe laid down hastily, with ashes falling'
out of it. She thought how lonesome Mr. Sparrow was
living, — doing for himself.

All the square open space down through which the blue
heavens looked between those great towering buildings, was
filled with brightness as with a flood. The air was lurid

BOX FIFTY'TWO 229

crimson. Every stone and chip and fragment lay revealed
in the strange, transfiguring light. Away across the stable-
roofs, they could read far-off signs painted in black letters
upon brick walls. Church spires stood up, bathed in a wild
glory, pointing as out of some day of doom, into the ever-
lasting rest The stars showed like points of clear, green,
unearthly radiance, against that contrast of fierce red.

It surged up and up, as if it would over-boil the very stars
themsQlves. It swayed to right, — to left; growing in an
awful bulk and intensity, without changing much its place,
to their eyes, where they stood. On the tops of the high
Apartment Hotel, and all the flat-roofed houses in Hero and
Pilgrim streets, were men and women gazing. Their faces,
which could not have been discerned in the daylight, shone
distinct in this preternatural illumination. Their voices
sounded now and then, against the yet distant hum and
crackle of the conflagration, upon the otherwise still air.
The rush had, for a while, gone by. The streets in this
quarter were empty.

Grand and terrible as the sight was to them in Leicester
Place, they could know or imagine little of what the fire was
really doing.

' It backs against the wind,' they heard one man say upon
the stable-roof.

They could not resist opening the window, just a little,
now and then, to listen ; though Bel would instantly pull
Aunt Blin away, and then they would put it down. Poor
Aunt Blin's nose grew very cold, though she did not know
it Her nose was little and sensitive. It is not the big noses
that feel the cold the most Aunt Bhn took cold through
her face and her feet ; and these the dressing-gown, and the
waterproof, and the comforter, did not protect.

*It must have spread among those crowded houses in
Kingston and South streets,' Aunt Bhn said; and as she
spoke, her poor old * ornaments ' chattered.

* Aunt Blin, you shall come down and take something hot,
and go to bed!' exclaimed Bel, peremptorily. *We can't
stay here all night. Mr. Sparrow will be back, — and every-
body. I think the fire is going down. It's pretty still now.
We've seen it all. Come ! '

230 • THE OTHER GIRLS

They had never a thought, any of them, of more than a
block or so burning. Of course the firemen would put it out
They always did.

' See ! see I ' cried the landlady. * O my sakes and sor-
rows ! '

A huge, volcanic column of glittering sparks — of great
flaming fragments — shot up and soared broad and terrible
into the deep sky. A long, magnificent, shinmiering, scin-
tillant train — fire spangled with fire — swept southward like
the tail of a comet, that had at last swooped down and
wrapped the earth.

* The roofs have fallen in,' said innocent old Miss Smalley.

* That will be the last. Now they will stop it,' said BeL
* Come, Auntie ! '

And after midnight, for an hour or more, the house, with
the five women in it, hushed. Aunt Blin took some hot
Jamaica ginger, and Bel filled a jug with boiling water,
wrapped it in fiannel, and tucked it into the bed at her feet.
Then she gave her a spoonful of her cough-mixture, took off
her own clothes, and lay down.

Still the great fire roared and put out the stars.- Still the
room was red with the light of it. Aunt Blin fell asleep.

Bel lay and listened, and wondered. She would not move
to get up and look again, lest she should rouse her aunt.
Suddenly she heard the boom of a great explosion. She
started up.

Miss Smalley's voice sounded at the door.

* It's awful ! ' she whispered, through the keyhole, in a
ghostly way. ' I thought you ought to know. The cinders
are flying everywhere. I heard an engine come up from the
railroad. People are running along the streets, and teams
are going, and everything, — the other way ! They're blowing
up houses ! There, don't you hear that ? '

It was another sullen, heavy roar.

Bel sprang out of bed; hurried into her garments; opened
the door to Miss Smalley. They went and stood together
in the entry- window.

*A11 Kingman's carriages are out, sick horses and all;
they've trundled wheelbarrow loads of things dpwn *o the
stable. There's a heap of furniture dumped down in the

BOX FIFTY-TWO 231

middle of the place. Women are going up Tremont Street
with bundles and little children. Where do you s'pose it's
got to ? '

* See there ! ' said Bel, pointing across the square to the
dark, public building. High up, in, one of the windows, a
gas-light glinmiered. Two men were visible in the otherwise
deserted place. They were putting up a step-ladder.

' Do you suppose they are there nights, — other nights ? '
Bel asked Miss Smalley.

* No. They're after books and things. They're going to
pack up.'

' The fire catCt be coming here ! '

Bel opened the window carefully, as she spoke. A man
was standing in the livery-stable door. A hack came
rapidly down, and the driver called out something as he
jumped off.

* Where ? ' they heard the hostler ask.

* Most up to Temple Place.'

' Do they mean the fure ? They can't ! '

They did ; but they were, as we know, somewhat mis-
taken. Yet that great, surf-Uke flame, rushing up and on^
was rioting at the very head of Summer Street, and plunging
down Washington. Trinity Church was already a blazing
wreck.

'Has it come up Summer Street, or how?' asked Bel,
helplessly, of helpless Miss Smalley. ' Do you suppose
Filhner & Bylles is burnt ? '

' I must ask somebody ! '

These women, with no man belonging to them to come
and give them news, — ^restrained by force of habit from what
would have been at another time strange to do, and not
knowing even yet the utter exceptionality of this time, —
while down among the hissing engines and before the face
of the conflagration stood girls in dehcate dress under
evening wraps, come from gay visits with brothers and
friends, and drawn irresistibly by the grand, awful magnetism
of the spectacle, — while up on die aristocratic avenues, along
Arlington Street, whose windows flashed like jewels in the
far-shining, flames, where the wonderful bronze Washington
sat majestic and still against that sky of stormy fire as he sits

232 THE OTHER GIRLS

in every change and beautiful surprise of whatever sky of
cloud or colour may stretch about him, — on Commonwealth
Avenue, where splendid mansions stood with doors wide
open, and drays unloading merchandise saved from the
falling warehouses into their freely offered shelter, — ladies
were walking to and fro, as if in their own halls and parlours,
watching, and questioning whomsoever came, and saying to
each other hushed and solemn or excited words, — ^when the
whole city was but one great home upon which had fallen a
mighty agony and wonder that drove its hearts to each other
as the hearts of a household, — these two, Bel Bree and httle
Miss Smalley, knew scarcely anything that was definite, and
had been waiting and wondering all night, thinking it would
be improper to talk into the street !

A young lad came up the court at last ; he lived next door ;
he was an errand-boy in some great store on Franklin Street.
His mother spoke to him from her window.

* Bennie ! how is it ? '

* Mother ! All Boston is gone up ! Summer Street, High
Street, Federal Street, Pearl Street, Franklin Street, Milk
Street, Devonshire Street, — everything, clear through to the
New Post Office. IVe been on the Conmion all night,
guarding goods. There's another fellow there now, and IVe
come home to get warm. Fm almost frozen.'

His mother was at the door as he finished speaking, and
took him in ; and they heard no more.

The bo/s words were heavy with heavy meaning. He said
them without any boy-excitement ; they carried their own
excitement in the heart of them. In those eight hours he
had lived like a man ; in an experience that until of late few
men have known.

They did not know how long they stood there after that,
with scarcely a word to each other, — only now and then some
utterance of sudden recollection of this and that which must
have vanished away within that stricken territory, — taking
in, slowly, the reality, the tremendousness of what had
happened, — ^was happening.

It was five o'clock when Mr. Hewland came in, and up the
stairs, and found them there. Aunt Blin had not awaked.
There was a trace of morphine in her cough-drops, and Bel

BOX FIFTY-TWO 233

knew now, since she had slept so long, that she would doubt-
less sleep late into the morning. That was well It would be
time enough to tell her by and by. There would be all day, —
all winter, — to tell it in.

Mr. Hewland told them, hastily, the main history of the
fire.

* Is Trinity Church?' — asked poor Miss Smalley, trem-
blingly.

She had not said anything about it to Bel Bree ; she could
not think of that great stone tower as having let the fire in, —
as not having stood, cool and strong, against any flame. And
Trinity Church was her tower. She had sat in one seat in
its free gallery for fourteen years. If that were gone, she
would hardly know where to go, to get near to heaven. Only
nine days ago, — ^All Saints' Day, — she had sat there listening
to beautiful words that laid hold upon the faith of all
believers, back through the church, back before Church to
the prophets and patriarchs, and told how God was her God
because He had been theirs. The old faith, — ^and the Old
Church ! < Was Trinity ? ' — She could not say, — * burned.'
But Mr. Hewland answered in one word, — * Gone.'

That word answered so many questions on which life and
love hung, that fearful night !

Mr, Hewland was wet and cold. He went up to his room
and changed his clothing. When the daylight, pale and
scared, was creeping in, he came down again.

* Would you not like to go down and see ? ' he said to
Bel.

*CanI?'

* Yes. There is no danger. The streets are comparatively
clear. I will go with you.'

Bel asked Miss Smalley.

* Will you come ? Auntie will be sure to sleep, I think.'
Miss Smalley had scarcely heart either to go or stay. Of

the two, it was easier to go. To do — to see — something.

Mr. Sparrow came in. He met them at the door, and
turned directly back with them.

He, too, was a free-seat worshipper at Old Trinity. He
and the music-mistress — they were both of English birth,
hence of the same national faith — had been used to go from

234 THE OTHER GIRLS

the same dwdling, separately, to the same house of worship,
and sit in opposite galleries. But their hearts had gone up
together in the holy old words that their lips breathed in the
murmur of the congregation. These links between them, of
country and religion, which jthey had never spoken o^ were
the real links.

As they went forth this Sunday morning, in company for
the first time, towards the church in which they should never
kneel again, they felt another, — the link that Eve and Adam
felt when the sword of flame swept Paradise.

Plain old souls ! — Plain old bodies, I mean, hopping and
' todillating '^ — as Bel expressed the little spinster's gait —
along together ; their souls walked in a sweet and gracious
reality before the sight of God.

Bel and Mr. Hewland were beside each other. They had
never walked together before, of course ; but they hardly
thought of the unusualness. The time broke down distinc-
tions ; nothing looked strange, when everything was so.

They went along by the Common fence. In the street,
a continuous line of waggons passed them, moving southward.
Gentlemen sat on cart-fronts beside the teamsters, ac-
companying their fragments of property to places of bestowal.
Inside the inclosure, in the malls, along under the trees, upon
the grass, away back to the pond, were heaps of merchandise.
Boxes, bales, hastily collected and unpacked goods of all
kinds, from carpets to cotton-spools, were thrown in piles,
which men and boys were guarding, the police passing to
and fro among them all. People were wrapped against the
keen November cold, in whatsoever they could lay their
hands on. A group of men pacing back and forth before a
pyramid of cases, had thrown great soft white blankets about
their shoulders, whose bright striped borders hung fantastic-
ally about them, and whose comers fell and dragged upon
the muddy ground.

Down by- Park Street comer, and at Winter Street, black
columns of coal smoke went up from the steamers ; the hose,
like monstrous serpents, twisted and trailed along the
pavements; water stood in pools and flowed in runnels,
everywhere.

They went down Winter Street, stepping over the hose-

EVENING AND MORNING: SECOND DAY 23$

coils, and across the leaking streams ; they came to the
crossing of Washington, where yesterday throngs of women
passed, shopping from stately store to store.

Beyond, were smoke and ruin ; swaying walls, heaps of
fallen masonry, chevaux-de-frises of bristling gas and water-
pipes, broken and protruding. A little way down, to the left,
sheets of flame, golden in the gray daylight,, were pouring
from the face of the beautiful ' Transcript ' building.

They stood, fearful and watchful, under the broken granite
walls opposite Trinity Church.

Windows and doors were gone from the grand old edifice ;
inside, the fire was shining ; devouring, at its dreadful ease,
the sacred architecture and furnishings that it had swept
down to the ground.

* See ! There he is ! ' whispered Miss Smalley to Mr.
Sparrow, as she gazed with imconscious tears falling fast
down her pale old cheeks.

It was the Rector of Trinity, who thought to have stood
this morning in the holy place to speak to his people. Down
the middle of the street he came, and went up to the cum-
bered threshold and the open arch, within which a terrible
angel was speaking in his stead.

* Do you think he remembers now, what he said about
the God of Daniel, as he looks into the blazing fiery
furnace ? '

^ I dare say he doesn't ever remember what he said ; but
he remembers always what is/ answered the watchmaker.

CHAPTER XXIII,

EVENING AND MORNING : THE SECOND DAY.

The strange, sad Sunday wore along.

The teams rolled on, incessantly, through the streets ; the
blaze and smoke went up from the sixty acres of destruction;
friends gathered together and talked of the one thing, that,
talk as they might, would not be put into any words. Men
whose wealth had turned to ashes in a night went to and fro
in the same coats they had worn yesterday, and hardly knew

236 THE OTHER GIRLS

yet whether they themselves were the same or not It
seemed^ so strangely, as if the clock might be set back
somehow, and yesterday be again; it was so little way
off!

Women who had received, perhaps, their last wages for
the winter on Saturday night, sat in their rooms and wondered
what would be on Monday.

Aunt Blin was excited; strong with excitement She
went downstairs to see Miss Smalley, who was too tired to
sit up.

Out of the fire, Bel Bree and Paulina Smalley had each
brought something that remained by them secretly all this
day.

When they had stopped there under those smoked and
shattered walls, and Morris Hewland had drawn BeFs hand
within his arm to keep her from any movement into danger,
he had gently laid his own fingers, in care and caution, upon
hers. A feeling had come to them both with the act, and
for a moment, as if the world, with all its great, built-up
barriers of stone, had broken down around them, and lay at
their feet in fragments, among which they two stood free
together. .

The music-mistress and the watchmaker, looking in upon
their place of prayer, seeing it empty and eaten out by the
yet lingering tongues of fire, had exchanged those words
about the things that are. For a minute, through the
emptiness, they reached into the eternal deep ; for a minute
their simple souls felt themselves, over the threshold of
earthly ruin, in the spaces where there is no need of a
temple any more; they forgot their work and far-spent
lives,^-each other's old and Jyear-marked faces ; they were
as two spirits, met without hindrance or incongruity, looking
into each other's spiritual eyes.

Poor old Miss Smalley, when she came home and took
off her hood before her little glass, and saw how pale she
was with her night's watching and excitement, and how the
thin gray hairs had straggled over her forehead, came back
with a pang into the flesh, and was afraid she had been
ridiculous ; but lying tired upon her bed, in the long after
hours of the day, she forgot once more what manner of

EVENING AND MORNING: SECOND DAY 2^

outside woman she was, and remembered only, with a per-
vading peace, how the watchmaker had spoken.

Night came. The pillar of smoke that had gone up all
day, turned again into a pillar of fire, and stood in the
eastern heavens.

The time of safety, when there had been no flaming
terror, was already so far off, that people, fearing this night
to surrender themselves to sleep, wondered that in any
nights they had ever dared, — wondered that there had ever
been anything but fear and burning, in this great, crowded
city.

The guards paced the streets ; the roll of waggons
quieted. The stricken town was like a fever patient, seized
yesterday with a sudden, devouring rage of agony, — to-day
calmed, put under care, a rule established, watchers set.

Miss Smalley went from window to window as the dark-
ness — and the apparition of flame — came on. Rested by
the day's surrender to exhaustion, she was alert and appre-
hensive and excited now.

' It will be sure to burst out again,' she said ; ' it always
doesi'

* Don't say so to Aunt Blin,' whispered Bel. * Look at
her cheeks, and her eyes. She is sick-abed this minute, and
she will keep up ! '

At nine o'clock, the very last thing, she spoke with the
music-mistress again, at the door. Miss Smalley kept
coming up into the passage to look out at that end
window.

' I don't mean to get up if it does bum,' Bel said, reso-
lutely. ' It won't come here. We ought to sleep. That's our
business. Therell be enough to do, may be, afterwards.'

But for all that^ in the dead of the night, she was roused
again.

A sound of bells ; a long alarm of which she lost the
count ; a great explosion. Then that horrible cataract of
flame and sparks overhanging the stars as it did before, and
paling them out

It seemed as if it had always been so ; as if there had
never been a still, dark heaven under which to lie down
tranquilly and sleep.

240 THE OTHER GIRLS

' 111 tell you what/ said good, inopportune Miss Smalley ;
'she's going to be dreadful sick, I'm afraid. Itll be head
and lungs both. That's what my sister had.'

* DofCt tell me what ! ' cried Bel, irritatedly.

But the doctor told her what, when he came.

Not in words ; doctors .don't do that. But she read it in
his grave carefulness ; she detected it in the orders which he
gave. People brought up in the country, — where neighbours
take care of each other, and where every symptom is talked
over, and the history of every fatal disorder turns into a
tradition, — learn about sickness and the meanings of it ; on
its ghastly and ominous side, at any rate.

Mr. Hewland came back and brought two candles, which
he had with difficulty procured from a hotel. He brought
word, also, that the fire was under control ; that they need
feel no more alarm.

And so this second night of peril and disaster passed
painfully and slowly by.

But on the Monday, the day in which Boston was like
a city given over into the hands of a host, — when its streets
were like slow-moving human glaciers, down the midst of
which in a narrow channel the heavier flow of burdened
teams passed scarcely faster forward than the hindered side
streams, — Aunt Blin lay in the grasp and scorch of a fire
that feeds on life; wasting under that which uplifts and
frenzies, only to prostrate and destroy. *

I shall not dwell upon it. It had to be told ; the fire also
had to be told; for it happened, and could not be ignored.
It happened, intermingling with all these very things of
which I write ; precipitating, changing, determining much.

Before the end of that first week, in which the stun and
shock were reacting in prompt, cheerful, benevolent organis-
ing and providing,— in which, through wonderful, dreamlike
ruins, like the ruins of the far-off past, people were wandering,
amazed, seeing a sudden torch laid right upon the heart and
centre of a living metropolis and turning it to a shadow and
decay, — in which human interests and experiences came to
mingle that had never consciously approached each other
before, — in which the little household of independent exist-
ences in Leicester Place was fused into an almost family

TEMPTATION 241

relation all at once, after years of mere juxtaposition, —
before the end of that week, Aunt BUn died.

It was as though the fiery thrust that had transpierced the
heart of *her Boston,' had smitten the centre of her own
vitality in the self-same hour.

All her clpthes hung in the closet ; the very bend of her
arm was in the sleeve of the well-worn alpaca dress ; the
work-basket, with a cloth jacket-front upon it, in which was
a half-made button-hole, left just at the stitch where all her
labour ended, was on the round table ; Cheeps was singing
in the window ; Bartholomew was winking on the hearth-
rug ; and little Bel, among these belongings that she knew
not what to do with any more, was all alone.

CHAPTER XXIV.

TEMPTATION.

The Relief Committee was organising in Park Street
Vestry.

Women with help in their hands and sympathy in their
hearts, came there to meet women who wanted both ; came,
many of them, straight from the first knowledge of the loss
of ahnost all their own money, with word and act of fellow-
ship ready for those upon whose very life the blow fell yet
closer and harder. Over the separating lines of class and
occupation a divine impulse reached, at least for the moment,
both ways.

' BofEn's Bower' was all alert with aggressive, independent
movement. Here, they did not believe in the divine impulse
of the hour. They would stay on their own side of the line.
They wotdd help themselves and each other. They wotdd
stand by their own class, and cry * hands off!' to the rich
women.

What was to be done, for lasting understanding and true
relation^ between these conflicting, yet mutually dependent
elements ?

242 THE OTHER GIRLS

In their own separate places sat solitary girls and women
who sought neither yet

Bel Bree was one.

The little room which had been home while Aunt Blin
lived there with her, was suddenly become only a dreary,
lonely lodging-room. Cheeps and Bartholomew were there,
chirping and purring ; the sun was shining in ; the things
were all hers, for Aunt Blin had written one broad, straggling,
unsteady line upon a sheet of paper the last day she lived,
when the fever and confusion had ebbed away out of her
brain as life ebbed slowly back, beaten from its outworks by
disease, towards her heart, and she lay feebly, but clearly,
conscious.

' I give all I leave in the world to my niece Belinda
Bree.'

' Kellup ' came down and buried his sister, and ' looked
into things ; ' concluded that ' Bel was pretty comfortable,
and with good folks, — Mrs. Pimminy and Miss Smalley ;
'sposed she calculated to keep on, now ; she could come back
if she wanted to, though.'

Bel did not want to. She would stay here a little while,
at any rate, and think. So Kellup went back intp New
Hampshire.

There was a little money laid up since Miss Bree and Bel
had been together ; Bel could get along, she thought, till
work began again. But it was no longer living ; it would
not be living then ; it would be only work and solitude. She
was like. a great many others of them now ; g^rls without tie
or belonging, — ^holding on where they could. Elise Mokey
had said to her, — * See if you could help yourself if you
hadn't Aunt Blin ! ' and now she began to look forward
against that great, dark * If.'

Everything had come together. If work had kept on,
there would have been these little savings to fall back upon
when earnings did not quite meet outlay. But now she
should use them up before work came. And what did it
signify, anyhow ? All the comfort — all the meaning of it —
was gone.

They were all kind to her ; Miss Smalley sat with her,
evenings, till Bel wished she would have the wiser kindness
to go away and let her be miserable, just a little while^

TEMPTATION 243

Morris Hewland knocked at the door one afternoon when
the music-mistress was out, giving her lessons.

Bel did not ask him in to sit down ; she stood just within
the doorway, and talked with him.

He made some friendly enquiries that led to conversation ;
he drew her to say something of her plans. He had not
come on purpose ; he hardly knew what he had come for.
He had only^ knocked to say a word of kindness ; to look in
the poor, pretty little face that he felt such a tenderness
for.

'I can't bear to give things up, — because they were
pleasant,' Bel said. ' But I suppose I shall have to go away.
It isn't home ; there isn't anybody to make home with any
more. I know what I had thought of, a while ago ; I believe
I know what there is that I might do ; I am just waiting
until the thoughts come back, and begin to look as they did.
Nothing looks as it did yet.'

'Nothing?' asked Morris Hewland, his eyes questioning
of hers.

' Yes, — ^friends. But the friends are all outside, after all.'

Hewland stood silent.

How beautiful it might be to make home for such a littlr
heart as this ! To surround her with comfort and pretti-
ness, such as she loved and knew how to contrive out of so
little ! To say, — * Let us belong together. Make home with
meP

Satan, as an angel of light, entered into him. He knew
he could not say this to her as he ought to say it; as
he would say it to a girl of his own class whom father and
mother would welcome. There was no girl of his own class
he had ever cared to say it to. This was the first woman he
had found, with whom the home thought joined itself. And
this could not rightly be. If he took her, he would no
longer have the things to give her. They would be cast out
together. And all he could do was to make pictures, of
which he had never sold one, or thought to sell one, in all
his life. He would be just as poor as she was ; and he felt
that he did not know how to be poor. Besides, he wanted
to be rich for her. He wanted to give her, — now, right off,
— everything.

244 THE OTHER GIRLS

Why shouldn't he give ? Why shouldn't she take ? He
had plenty of money; he was his father's only son. He n\eant
right ; so he said to himself ; and what had the world to do
with it?

* I wish I could take care of you, Bel ! Would you let me J
Wotdd you go with me ? '

The words seemed to have said themselves. The devil,
whom he had let have his heart for a minute, had got his lips
and spoken through them before he knew.
' Where,' asked Bel. ' Home ? '
' Yes, — ^home,' said the young man, hesitating.

* Where your mother lives ? '

Bel Bree's simplicity went nigh to being a stronger battery
of defence than any bristling of alarmed knowledge.

* No,' said Morris Hewland. ^ Not there. It would not do
for you, or her either. But I could give you a little home. I
could take care of you all your life ; all my life. And I
would. I will never make a home for anybody else. I will
be true to you, if you will trust me, — always. So help me
God!'

He meant it ; there was no dark, deliberate sin in his heart,
any more than in hers ; he was tempted on the tenderest,
truest side of his nature, as he was tempting her. He did not
see why he should not choose the woman he would live with
all his Ufe, though he knew he could not choose her in the face
of all the world ; though he could not be married to her in
the Church of the Holy Commandments, with bridesmaids
and ushers, and music and flowers, and point lace and white
satin, and fifty private carriages waiting at the door, and half
a ton of gold and silver plate and verd antique piled up for
hem in his father's house.

His father was a hard, proud, unflinching man, who loved
and indulged his son, aifter his fashion and possibility ; but
who would never love or indulge him again if he-offended in
such a thing as this. His mother was a woman who simply
could not imderstand that a girl like Bel Bree was a creature
made by God at all, as her daughters were, and her son's wife
sh be.

* Do you care enough for me ? '

Bel stood utterly still. She never had been asked any

TEMPTATION 245

such questions before, but she felt in some way, that this was
not all ; ought not to be all ; that there was more he was to
say, before she could answer him.

He came towards her. He put his hands on hers. He looked
eagerly into her eys. He did not hesitate now ; the man's
nature was roused in him. He must make her speak, — say
that she cared.

^ Dof^t you care ? Bel — you do ! You are my little wife ;
and the world has not anything to do with it! '

She broke away from him ; she shrunk back.

' Don't do that,' he said, imploringly. ' I'm not bad, Bel.
The world is bad. Let us be as good and loving as we can be
in it. Don't think me bad.'

There was not any thing bad in his eyes ; in his young,
loving, handsome face. Bel was not sure enough, — strong
enough, — tft denounce the evil that was using the love ; to
say to that which was tempting him, and her by him, as
Peter's passionate remonstrance tempted the Christ, — * Thou
art Satan. Get thee behind me.'

Yet she shrunk, bewildered.

* I don't know ; I can't understand. Let me go now, Mr.
Hewland.'

She turned away from him, into the chamber, and reached
her hand to the door as she turned, putting her fingers on
its edge to close it after him. She stood with her back to
him ; hstening, not looking, for him to go.

He retreated, then, linger ingly, across the threshold, his
eyes upon her still. She shut the door slowly, walking back-
ward as she pushed it to. She had left^ if not driven the
devil behind her. Yet she did not know what she had done.
She was still bewildered. I believe the worst she thought of
what had happened was that he wanted to marry her secretly,
and hide her away.

* Aunt Blin ! ' she cried, when she felt herself all alone.
*Aunt Blin !— She ^a«'/ have gone so very far away, quite
yet!'

She went over to the closet, with her arms stretched
out.

She went in, where Aunt Blin's clothes were hanging.
She grasped the old, worn dress, that was almost warm with

246 THE OTHER GIRLS

the wearing. She hid her face against the sleeve, curved
with the shape of the arm that had bent to its tasks
in it.

* Tell me, Aunt Blin ! You can see clear where you are.
Is there any good — any right in it ? Ought I to tell him that
I care?'

She cried, and she waited ; but she got no answer there.
She came away, and sat down.

She was left all to herself in the hard, dreary world, with
this doubt, this temptation, to deal with. It was her wilder-
ness ; and she did not remember, yet, the Son of God who
had been there before her.

' Why do they go off so far away in that new life, out of
which they might help us ? '

She did not know how close the angels were. She listened
outside for them, when they were whispering already at her
heart. We need to go in ; not to reach painfully up, and
away, — after that world in which we also, though blindly,
dwell.

On the table lay Aunt Blinds great Bible ; beside it her
glasses.

Something that Miss Euphrasia had told them one day
at the chapel came suddenly into her mind.

* The angels are always near us when we are reading the
Word, because they read, ajways, the living Word in
heaven/

Was that the way? Might she enter so, and find
them ?

She moved slowly to the table.

It was growing dark. She struck a match and lit the
gas, turning it low. She laid back the leaves of the large
volume, to the latter portion. She opened it in Matthew, —
to the nineteenth chapter.

When she had read that, she knew what she was to do.

She heard nothing more from Morris Hewland that
night.

In the morning, early, she had her room bright and ready
for the day. The light was calm and clear about her. The
shadows were all gone.

She opened her door, and sat down, waiting before the fire.

TEMPTATION 247

Did she think of that night when she had had on the rose-
coloured silk, and had set the door ajar ? Something in her
had made her ashamed of that. She was not ashamed — she
had no misgiving — of this that she was going to do now.

She was all alone ; she had no other place to wait in ; she
had no one to tell her anything. She was going to do a plain
right thing, whether it was just what anybody else would do,
or not. She never even asked herself that question.

She heard Mr. Sparrow, with his hop and step, come down
over the stairsi He always can^e down first of alL Then for
another half hour, she sat still. At the end of that time,
Morris Hewland's door unlatched and closed again.

Her heart beat quick. She stood up, with her face towards
the open door. At the foot of that upper flight she heard him
pause. She could not see him till he passed ; and he might
pass without turning. Unless he turned, she would be out of
his sight ; for the door swung inward from the far comer.
No matter.

He went by with a slow step. He could not help seeing the
open door. But he did not stop or turn, until he reached the
stairhead of the second flight ; then he had to face this way
again. And as he passed around the railing, he looked up ;
for Bel was standing where she had stood last night.

She had put herself in his way ; but she had not done it
lightly, with any half-intent, to give him new opportunity for
words. There was a pure, gentle quiet in her face ; she had
something herself to say. He saw it, and went back.

He coloured, as he gave her his hand. Her face was pale.

'Come in a moment, Mr. Hewland,' said the simple,
girlish voice.

If e followed her in.

* You asked me questions last night, and I did not know
how to answer them. I want to ask you one question, now.'

She had brought him to the side of the round table, upon
whose red cloth the large Bible lay. It was open at the
place where she had read it.

She put her finger on the page, and made him look.
She drew the finger slowly down from line to line, as if she
were pointing for a little child to read; and his eye followed it.

* For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and
shall cleave to his wife ; and they twain shall be one flesh.

248 THE OTHER GIRLS

* Wherefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh. What
therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder/

' Is that the way you will make a home and give it to me, —
before them all ? ' she said.

He forgot the sophistries he might have used ; he forgot to
say that it was to leave father and mother and join himself to
her, that he had purposed ; he forgot to tell her again that he
would be true to her all his life, and that nothing should put
them asunder. He did not take up those words, as men have
done, and say that God had joined their hearts together and
made them in his sight one. The angels were beside him, in
his turn, as he read. Those sentences of the Christ, shining
up at him from the page, were like the look turned back upon
Peter, showing him his sin.

' One flesh : ' to be seen and known as one. To have one
body of living ; to be outwardly joined before the face of men.
None to set them asunder, or hold them separate, by thought,
or accident, or misunderstanding. This was the sacred
acknowledgment of man and wife, and he knew that he had
not meant to make it.

As he stood there, silent, she knew it too. She knew that
she should not have been his wife before anybody.

Her young face grew paler, and turned stem.

His flushed: a slow, burning, relentless flush, that be-
trayed him, marking him like Cain. He lowered his eyes in
the heat of it, and stood so before the child.

She looked steadfastly at him for one instant ; then she
shut the book, and turned away, delivering him from the con-
demning Ught of her presence.

' No : I will not go to that little home with you,' she said
with a grief and scorn mingled in her voice, as they might
have been in the voice of an angel.

When she looked round again, he was gone. Their ways
had parted.

An hour later, Bel Bree turned the key outside her door,
and with a little leather bag in her hand, saying not a word to
anyone, went down into the street.

Across the Common, and over the great hill, she walked
straight to Greenley Street, and to Miss Desire.

BEL BREES CRUSADE: THE PREACHING 249

CHAPTER XXV.

BEL BREE'S CRUSADE: THE PREACHING.

Desire Led with had a great many secrets to keep. Every-
body came and told her one.

All these girls whom she knew, had histories; troubles,
perplexities, wrongs, temptations,— greater or less. Grad-
ually, they all confessed to her. The wrong side of the
world's patchwork looked ugly to her, sometimes.

Now, here came Bel Bree ; with her story, and her little
leather bag ; her homelessness, her friendlessness. No, not
that ; for Desire Ledwith herself contradicted it ; even Mrs.
Pinuniny and Miss Smalley were a great deal better than
nothing. Not friendlessness, then, exactly ; but belonglessness.

Desire sent down to Leicester Place for Bel's box; for
Cheeps also. Bel wrote a note to Miss Smalley, asking her
to take in Bartholomew. What came of that, I may as well
tell here as anywhere ; it will not take long. It is not really
an integral part of our story, but I think you will like to know.

Miss Smalley herself answered the note. It was easy
enough to evade any close questions on her part; she thought
it was * a good deal more suitable for Bel not to stay at Mrs.
Pimmin/s alone, and she wasn't an atom surprised to know
she had concluded so ; * besides. Miss Smalley was very
much preoccupied with her own. concerns.

^ There was the room,' she said; 'and there was the
furniture. Now, would Bel Bree let the things to her, just as
they stood, if she, — well, if Mr. Sparrow, — for she didn't mind
telling Bel that she and Mr. Sparrow had made up their
minds to look after each other's comfort as well as they could
the rest of their lives, seeing how liable we all were to need
comfort and company, at fires and things ; — if Mr. Sparrow
hired the room of Mrs. Pinmiiny ? And as to Bartholomew,
Mr. Sparrow wotddn't mind him, and she didn't think
Bartholomew would object to Mr. Sparrow. Cats rather
took to him, he thought They would make the creature

250 THE OTHER GIRLS

welcome, and make much of him ; and not expect it to. be
considered at all.'

Bel concluded the arrangement. She thought it would be
a comfort to know that Aunt Blin's little place was not all
broken up, but that somebody was happy there ; that Bar-
tholomew had his old comer of the rug, and his airings on
the sunny window-sill ; and Miss Smalley — Mrs. Sparrow
that was to be— ^would pay her fifteen dollars a year for the
things, and make them last.

* That carpet ? ' she had said ^ * why, it hadn't begun to
pocket yet ; and there hadn't been any breadths changed ; and
the mats saved the hearth-front and the doorway, and she
could lay down more. And it wpuld turn, when it came to
that, and last on — as long as ever. There was six years in
that carpet, without darning, if there was a single day ; and
Mr. Sparrow always took off his boots and put on his slippers,
the minute ever he got in.'

Desire's library was full on Wednesday evenings, now.
The girls came for instruction, for social companionship, for
comfort. On the table in the dining-room were almost always
little parcels waiting, ready done up for one and another ;
little things Desire and Hazel * thought of beforehand, as
what they * might like and find convenient ; and what they'
— Desire and Hazel — ' happened to have.' Sometimes it was
a paper of nice prunes for a delicate appetite that was kept
too much to dry, economical food. Perhaps it was a jar of
' Liebig's Extract ' for Zmma HoUen, that she might make
beef-tea for herself ; or a remnant of flannel that * would just
do for a couple of undervests.' It was sure to be something
just right ; something with a real thought in it.

And out here in the dining-room, as they took their little
parcels, — or lingering in the hall aside from the others, or
stopping in a comer of the library, — they would have their.
* words ' with Desire and Hazel and Sylvie ; always some con-
fidence, or some question, or some telling of how this or that
had gone on or tumed out.

In. these days after the Great Fire, no wonder that the
dozen or fifteen became twenty, or even thirty ; the very
pigeons and sparrows tell each other where the people are
who love and feed them ; no wonder that all the chairs had

BEL BREES CRUSADE: THE PREACHING 2^1

to be brought in, and that the room was full ; that the room
in heart and brain, for sympathy and plan and counsel, was
crowded also, or would have been, if heart and brain were
not made to grow as fast as they take in tendernesses and
thoughts. If, too, one need did not fit right in and help
another ; and if being * right in the midst of the work' did not
continually give light and suggestion and opportunity.
Bel Bree came among them now, with her heart full.

* I know it better than ever,' she said to Miss Desire. ^ I
know that what ever so many of these girls want, most of all,
is kome, A place to work in where they can rest between
whiles, if it is only for snatches ; not to be out, and on their
feet, and just driving, with the minutes at their heels, all day
long. Girls want to work under cover ; they can favour
themselves then, and not slight the work either. And, espe-
cially, they want to belong somewhere. They can't fling
themselves about, separate, anywhere, without a great many
getting spoiled, or lost. They want some signs of care over
them ; and I believe there are places where they could have
it. If they can put twenty tucks into a white petticoat for a
cent a piece, and work half a day at it, and find their own fire
and bread and tea, why can't they do it for half a cent a
tuck, even, in people's houses, where they can have fire and
lodging and meals, and a name, at any rate, of being seen
to?'

* Say so to them, Bel. Tell them yourself, what you mean
to do, and find out who will do it with you. If this movement
could come from the girls themselves, — if two or three would
join together and begin, — I believe the leaven would work. I
believe it is the next thing, and that somebody is to lead the
way. Why not you ? '

That night, the Read-and-Talk left off the reading. Miss
Ledwith told them that there was so much to say, — so much
she wanted a word from them about, — that they would give
up the books for one evening. They would think about home,
instead of far-off places ; about themselves, — each other, —
and things that were laid out for them to do, instead of people
who had taken their turn at the world's work hundreds of
years ago. They would try and talk it out, — this hard ques-
tion of work, and place, and living ; and see, if they could.

252 THE OTHER GIRLS

what way was provided, — ^as in the nature of things there must
be some way, — ^for everybody to be busy, and everybody to be
better satisfied She thought Bel Bree had got a notion
of one way, that was open, or might be, to a good many ;
a way that it remained, perhaps, for themselves to open
rightly.

' Now, Bd, just tell us all how you feel about it There
isn't any of us whom you wouldn't say it to alone ; and every
one of us is only listening separately. When you have
finished, somebody else may have a word to answer.'

' I don't know as I could finish,' said Bel Bree, ' except by
going and living it out. And that is just what I think we have
got to do. I've said it before ; the girls know I have ; but
I'm surer than ever of it now. Why, where does all the work
come from, but out of the homes ? I know some kinds may
always have to be done in the lump ; but there's ever so much
that might be done where it is wanted, and everybody be
better off. We want homes ; and we want real people to
work for ; those two things. I know we do. A lot of
stuff, and miles of stitches, ain't work) it don't make real
human beings, I think. It makes business, I suppose, and
money ; I don't know what it all comes round to, though, for
anybody; more spending, perhaps, and more having; but
not half so much being. At any rate, it don't come round in
that to us ; and we've got to look for ourselves. If we get
right, who knows but other folks may get righter in conse-
quence ? What I think is, that wherever there's a family, — a
father and a mother and little children — there's work to do,
and a home to do it in ; and we girls who haven't homes and
little children, and perhaps sha'n't ever have, — ain't much,
likely to have as things are now, — could be happier and
safer, and more used to what we ought to be used to in
case we should' — (Bel's sentences were getting to be very
rambling and involved, but her thoughts urged her on, and
everybody's in the room followed her), — * if we went right in
where the things were wanted, and did them. The sewing, —
and the cooking, — and the sweeping, too ; everything ; I
mean, whatever we could ; any of it. You call it " living out,"
and say you won't do it ; but what you do now is the living
out 1 We could afford to go and say to people who are

BEL BREES CRUSADE: THE PREACHING 253

worrying about poor help and awful wages, — "Well come
and do well by you for half the money. We know what
homes are wordi." And wouldn't some of them think the
millennium was come ? / am going to try it.'

Bel stopped. She did not think of such a thing as having
made a speech ; she had only said a little— just as it came —
of what she was full of.

' Youll get packed in with a lot of dirty servants. You
won't have the home. You'll only have the work of it'

' No, Kate Sencerbox. I sha'n't do that ; because I'm
going to persuade you to go with me. And well make the
home, if they give us ever so little a comer of it. And as
soon as they find out what we are, theyll treat us accordingly.'

Kate Sencerbox shrugged her shoulders.

^ The world isn't going to be made all over in a day, — nor
Boston either ; not if it is all burnt up to begin with.'

* That is true, Kate,' said Desire Ledwith. * You will have
difficulties. But you have difficulties now. And wouldn't
it be worth while to change these that are growing worse,
for such as might grow better? Wouldn't it be grand to
begin to make even a little piece of the world over 1 '

' We could start with new people,' said BeL * Young
people. They are the very ones that have the hardest time
with the oldest sort of servants. We could go out of town,
where the old sort won't stay. You see it's homes we're
after ; real ones ; and to help make them ; and it's homes
they hate ! '

'Where did you find it all out, Bel ?'

* I don't know. Talk ; and newspapers. And it's in the
air.'

Bel was her old, quick, bright, earnest self, taking hold of
this thing that she so truly meant. She turned roimd to it
eagerly, escaping from the thoughts which she resolutely
flung out of her mind. There was perhaps a slight impetus
of this hurry of escape in her eagerness. But Bel was
strong; strong in her purity; in her real poet-nature, that
reached for and demanded the real soul of living ; in her
incapacity to care for the shadow or pretence, — far more the
sullied sham, — of anything. Contempt of the evil had come
swifUy to cure the sting of the evil Satan would fain have

254 THE OTHER GIRLS

had her, to sift her like wheat ; but she had been prayed for ;
and now that she was saved, she was inspired to strengthen
her sisters.

* I don't think I could do anything but sewing/ said Emma
Hollen, plaintively. ' I'm not strong enough. And ladies
won't see to their own sewing, now, in their houses. It's so
much easier to go right into Feede & Treddle's, and buy
ready-made, that we've done the stitching for at forty cents a
day, hard work, and find ourselves ! '

^ I don't say that every girl in Boston can walk right into a
nice good home, and be given something to do there. But I
say there's no danger of too many trying it yet awhile ; and by
the time they do, maybe well have changed things a little for
them. I'm willing to be the thin edge of the wedge,' said Bel
Bree.

* Right things have the power. God sees to that,' said
Desire. * The right cannot stop working. The life is in it.'

* The thing I think of,' said Elise Mokey, decidedly, 'is
suller kitchens. I ain't ready to be put underground, — not
yet awhile. Not even by way of going to heaven, every night ;
or as near as four flights can carry me.'

* In the country they don't have cellar kitchens. And, any-
way, there's always a window, and a fire ; and with things
clean and cheerful, and some green thing growing for Cheeps
to sing to, 111 do,' said Bel. * You've got to begin with what
there is, as the Pilgrim Fathers did.'

Ray Ingraham could have told them, if she had been there
this Wednesday evening, how Dot had begun. Miss Ledwith
said nothing about it, because she felt that it was an excep-
tional case. She would not put a falsely flattering precedent
before these girls, to win them to an experiment which with them
might prove a hard and disappointing one. Desire Ledwith
was absolutely fair-minded in everything she did. The feeling
on their part that she was so, was what gave them their trust
in her. To bring a subject to her consideration and judg-
ment, was to bring it into clear sunlight.

Dot had gone up to Z ^ to live with the Kincaids, at the

Horse Shoe.

Drops of quicksilver, if they are put anywise near together,
will run into each other. And that is the law of the kingdom

BEL BREEDS CRUSADE : THE PREACHING 255

of good Circumstances are far more fluid to the blessed
magnetism than we think. The whole tendency of the right,
neighbourly life is to reach forth and draw together ; to bring
into one circle of communication people and plans of one
spirit and purpose. Then, before we know how it is, we find
them linking and fitting here and there, helping wonderfully
to make a beautiful organism of result that we could not have
planned or foreseen beforehand, any more than we could have
planned our own bodies. It is the growing up into one body
in Christ.

Hazel Ripwinkley said it all came of 'knowing the Muffin
Man ; ' and so it did. The Bread-Giver ; the Provider. It is
queer they should have made such an unconscious parable in
that nonsense-play. But you can't help making parables, do
what you wiU.

Rosamond Kincaid had her hands full now ; she had her
little Stephen.

He came like a little angel of delight, in one way ; the real,
heart way ; but another, — the practical way of day's doings
and ordering, — he came like a little Hun, overrunning and
devastating everything.

While Rosamond had been up-stairs, and Mrs. Waters had
been nursing her, and Miss Arabel coming in and out ta see
that all was straight below, it had been lovely ; it was the
peace of heaven.

But when Mrs. Waters — who was one of those bom nurses
whom everybody who has any sort of claim sends for in all
emergency of sickness — had to pack up her valise and go to
Portland, where her niece's son was taken with rheumatic
fever, and her niece had another bleeding at the limgs ; when
the days grew short, and the nights long, and the baby would
not settle his relations with the solar system, but having begun
his earthly career in the night-time, kept a dead reckoning
accordingly, and continued to make the midnight hours his
hours of demand and enterprise, — the nice little systematic
calculations by which the household had been regulated fell
into hopeless uncertainties.

Dorris had so many music scholars now, that she was
obliged to leave home at nine in the morning ; and at night
she was very tired. It was indispensable for her and for

256 THE OTHER GIRLS

Kenneth that dinner should be punctual Rosamond could
not let Miss ArabePs labours of love grow into matter-of-
course service.

And then there were all the sewing and mending to do;
which had not been anything to think of when there had
been plenty of time; but which, now that the baby devoured
all the minutes, and made a houseful of work beside, began
to grow threatening with inevitable procrastinations.

[Barbara Goldthwaite, who was at home at West Hill with
her baby, averred that these were the angels who came to
declare that time should be no longer.]

Rosamond would not have a nursery maid ; she * would not
give up her baby to anybody; ' neither would she let a ^ kitchen
girl ' into her paradisiacal realm of shining tins, and top-over
cups, and white, hemmed dishcloths.

* Let's have a companion!' said Dorris. * Let's afford her
together.'

When their * Christian Register' came, that very week,
there was Dot Ingraham's advertisement.

Mr. Kincaid went into the city, and round to Pilgrim Street,
and found her ; and now, in this November when every ma-
chine girl in Boston was thrown back upon her savings, or
her friends, or the public contribution, she was tucking up
little short dresses for Stephen, whom Rosamond, according
to the family tradition, called resolutely by his name, and
whom she would, at five months old, put into the freedom of
frocks, * in which he could begin to feel himself a little human
being, and not a tadpole.'

Dot helped in the kitchen, too; but this was a home kitchen.
She became one of themselves, ifor whatever there was to be
done. Especially she took triumphant care of Rosamond's
stand of plants, which, under her quickly recognised touch
and tending, rushed tumultuously into a green splendour, and
even at this early winter time, showed eager little buds of
bloom, of all that could bloom.

They had books and loud reading over their work. Every-
thing got done, and there were leisure hours again. Dot
earned four dollars a week, and once a fortnight went home
and spent a Sunday with her mother.
All went blessedly at the Horse Shoe ; but there is not a

TROUBLE AT THE SCHERMANS* 257

Horse Shoe everywhere. It is always a piece of luck to find
one.

Desire Ledwith knew that ; so she held her peace about it
for a while among these girls to whom Bel Bree was preach-
ing her crusade. All they knew was that Dot Ingraham and
her machine were gone away into a family eighteen miles
from Boston.

* If you find anything for me to do, Miss Ledwith, PU do
it,' said Kate Sencerbox. ' But I won't go into one of those
offices, nor off into the country for the winter. I want to keep
something to hold on to, — not run out to sea without a rope.'

Desire did not propose advertising, as she had done to Dot ;
she would let Kate wait a week. A week in the new condition
of things might teach her a good deal.

CHAPTER XXVI.

TROUBLE AT THE SCHERMANS'.

There was trouble in Mrs. Frank Scherman's pretty little
household.

The trouble was, it did not stay little. Baby Karen was
only six weeks old, and Marmaduke was only three years ;
great, splendid fellow though he was at that, and ^galumphing
round,' — as his mother said, who read nonsense to Sinsie out
of * Wonderland,' and the * Looking-glass,' — upon a stick.

Of course she read nonsense, and talked nonsense, — the
very happiest and most reckless kind, — in her nursery ; this
bright Sin Scherman, who * had lived on nonsense,' she de-
clared, 'herself, until she was twenty years old; and it did
her good.' Therefore, on physiological principles, she fed it
to her little ones. It agreed with the Saxon constitution.

There was nothing like understanding your own family idio-
syncracies.

Everjrthing quaint and odd came naturally to them : even
their names.

Asenath: Marmaduke: Kerenhappuch.

' I didn't go about to seek or invent them,' said Mrs. Scher-

2S8 THE OTHER GIRLS

man^ with grave, innocent eyes and lifted brows. * I didn't
name myself, in the first place ; did I ? Sinsie had to be
Sinsie ; and then — how am I accountable for the blessed luck
that gave me for best friends, dfear old Marmaduke, Whame,
and Kerenhappuch Craydocke ? '

But down in the kitchen, and up in the nursery, there was
disapproval.

* It was bad enough,' they said, — these orderers of house-
hold administration, — * when there was two. And no second
nurse-girl, and no laundress ! '

* If Mrs. Scherman thinks Pm going to put up with baby-
clothes slopping about all days of the week, whenever a nurse
can get time from tending, and the parlour girl havin' to accom-
modate and hold the child when she gets her meals, and no-
body to fetch out the dishes and give me a chance to clear up,
I can just teU her it's too thin ! '

* Ye'r a fool to stay,' was the expostulation of an outside
friend, calling one day to see and condole with and exasperate
the aforesaid nurse. ' When ther's places yer might have three
an' a half a week, an' a nurse for the baby separate, an' not a
stitch to wash, not even yer own things ! If they was any
account at all, they'd keep a laundress ! '

' I know there's places,' said the aggrieved, but wary Agnes.
* But the thing is to be sure an' git 'em. And what would I
do, waitin' round ? '

* Adz/^rtiss,' returned the friend. * Yer'd have heaps of 'em
after yer. It's fun to see the carriages roUin' along, one after
the other, in a hurry, and the coachmen lookin' out for the
number with their noses turned up. An' then yer take it quite
calm, yer see, an' send 'em off agin till yer find out how many
more comes ; and yer consider. That's the time yerll know
yer value ! I've got an ad^^rtiss out now ; an' I've had
twenty-three of 'em beggin' and prayin', down on ther bare
knees all but, since yesterday momin'. I've been down to
Pinyon's to-day, with my croshy-work, for a change. Norah
Moyle's there, with the rest of 'em, doin' ther little sewin'
work, an' hearin' the news, an' aggravatin' the ladies. Yer'U
see 'em come in, — ^betune ten an' eleven's the time, when the
cars arrives, — hot and flustered, an' not knowin' for their
lives which way to turn ; an' yer talks 'em aU up and down.

TROUBLE AT THE SC HERMANS' 259

deliberate ; an' makes 'em answer all the questions yer like^
and then yer tells 'em quite parlite, at the end, that yer don't
think 'twould suit yer expectash'ns ; it's not precisely what yer
was lookin' for. Yer toss 'em over for all the world as they
tosses goods on the counter. Ah^ yer can see a deal of life,
that way, of a momin'! '

Agnes feels, naturally, after this, that she makes a very
paltry and small appearance in the ey.es of her friend, and
betrays herself to be very much behindhand in the ways of
the world, putting up meekly, as she is, with a new baby and
no second nurse or laundress ; and forgetting the day when
she thought her fortune was made and she was a lady for ever,
coming from general housework in Aberdeen Street to be
nursery-maid in Harrisburg Square, she begins the usual pre-
liminaries of neglect, and sauciness, and staying out beyond
hours, and general defiance, — takes sides in the kitchen against
the family regime, and so helps on the evolution of things all
and particular, that at the end of another fortnight the house
is empty of servants, Mr. and Mrs. Scherman are gracefully
removing their breakfast dishes from the dining-room to the
kitchen, and Marmaduke, left to the sugar-bowl and his own
further devices, comes tumbling down the stairs just in time
to meet Mrs. M'Cormick, the washerwoman, arrived for the
day. She, used to her own half dozen, picks him up as
if she had expected him, shuts him up like an umbrella,
hustles him under her big, strong arm, and bears him sum-
marily to the cold water faucet, which, without uttering a
syllable, she turns upon his small, bewildered, and pitifully
bumped head.

It will be always a confused and mysterious riddle to his
childish recollection, — what strange gulf he fell into that day,
and how the kitchen sink and those great, grabbing arms came
to be at the end of it.

* How happened Dukie to tumble down-stairs ? ' asked Mrs.
Scherman, in the way mothers do, when she had released him
from Mrs. M'Cormick, carried him to the nursery, got him on
her knee in a speechful condition, and was tenderly sopping
the blue lump on his forehead with arnica water.

* I dicher tumber,' said little Saxon, stoutly, replacing all the

s 2

26o THE OTHER GIRLS

consonant combinations that he couldn't skip, with the aspi-
rated * ch ; ' 'I dicher tumber. I Pied.'

'Yoyxwhatf

' F'ied. I icher pa'yow. On'y die tare too big I'

* Yes, indeed/ said Sin, laughing. ' The stairs are a great
deal too big. And little sparrows don't fly — downstairs.
They hop round, and pick up crumbs.'

* Ho I did,' said Marmaduke, shpwing his white little front
teeth in the midst of a surrounding shine of stickiness.

* Yes. I see. Sugar. But you didn't manage that much
better, either. The trouble is, you haven't quite turned into
a little bird, yet. You haven't any little beak to pick up clean
with, nor any wings to fly with. You'll have to wait till you
grow.'

* I tc^h wa'he. I icher pa'yow now ! '

' What shall I do with this child, Frank ?' asked Sin, with
her grave, funny lifting of her brows, as her husband came
into the room. * He's got hypochondriasis. He thinks he's
a sparrow, and he's determined to fly. We shall have him
trying it off every possible — I mean impossible — ^place in the
house.'

'Put him in a cage,' said Mr. Scherman, with equal
gravity.

* Yes, of course. That's where little house-birds belong.
Duke, see here ! Little birds that live in houses never fly.
And they never pick up crumbs, either, except what are put
for them into their own little dishes. They live in tiny wire
rooms, fixed so that they can't fly out; like your nursery,
with the bars across the windows, and the gate at the door.
You and Sinsie are two little birds; mamma's sparrows.
And you mustn't try to get out of your cage unless she takes
you.'

* Then you're the great sparrow,' put in Sinsie, coming up
beside her, laughing. ' Whose sparrow are you?'

Asenath looked up at her husband.

* Yes; ifs a true story, after all. You can't make up any-
thing! It has been all told before. We're all sparrows,
Sinsie, — God's'sparrows.'

* In cages ? '

*^es. Only we can't always see the wires. They are very

TROUBLE AT THE SCHERMANS' 261

fine. There ! That's as far as you or I can understand. Now
be good little birdies, and hop round here together till mamma
comes back."

She went into her own room, to the tiniest little birdie of
all, that was just waking.

Sinsie and Marmaduke had got a ijew play, now. They
were quite contented to be sparrows, and chirp at each other,
springing and lighting about, from one green spot to anothei
in the pattern of the nursery carpet.

*ril tell you what,' said Sinsie, confidentially; * sparrows
don't have girls to interfere, do they? They live in the
cages and help themselves. I like it. I'm glad Agnes is
gone.'

Sinsie was four and a half; she had * talked plain ' ever
since she was one ; and the nonsense that her mother had
talked to her being always bright nonsense, such as she would
talk to anybody on the same subject, there was something
quaint in the child's fashion of speech, and her unexpected
use of words. Asenath Scherman did not keep two diction-
aries, nor pare off an idea, as she would a bit of apple before
she gave it to a child. It was noticeable how she sharpened
their little wits continually against her own without straining
them.

And there was a reflex action to this sharpening. She was
fuller of graceful little whims, of quick and keen illustrations,
than ever. Her friends who were admitted to nursery inti-
macies and nursery talk, said it was ever so much better than
any grown-up dinner-tables and drawing-rooms.

* Well,' she would answer, * I'm not much in the way of
dinner- tables and drawing-rooms. I just have to live right
along, and what there is of me comes out here. I rather
think well save time and comfort by it in the end, — Sinsie
and I. She won't want so much special taking into society
by and by, before she can learn to tell one thing from another.
Frank and I, with such friends as come here in our own
fashion, will make a society for her from the beginning, as
well as we can. She will get more from us in twenty years
than she would from " society" in two. And if I " kept up "
outside, now, for the sake of her future, that would be the
alternative. I believe more in growing up than in coming out'

262 THE OTHER GIRLS

If there was a reflex action in the mental influence, how
much more in the tender and spiritual ! How many a word
came back into her own heart like a dove, that she first
thought of in giving it to her child !

She sat now in her chamber, bathing and dressing baby
Karen ; and all the perplexities of the day, — the days or weeks,
perhaps, — that had stretched out before her, melted into a
sweetness, remembering that she herself was but one of God's
sparrows, fed out of his hand ; and that all her limitations, as
well as her unsuspected safeties, were the fine wires with which
He surrounded and held her in.

* He knows my cage,' she thought. ^ He has put me here
Himself, and He will not forget me.'

Frank dined down town ; Asenath had her lunch of bread
and butter, and beef-tea, aftd an ^^g beaten in a tumbler,
with sugar and cream, for her dessert. The children, with
their biscuit and milk, and baked apple, were easily cared for*
They played * sparrow ' all day ; Asenath put their little
bowls and spoons on the low nursery-table, and left them to
* help themselves.'

Honest, rough Mrs. M'Cormick fetched and carried for her,
and 'cleaned up' down-stairs. Then Asenath wrote a few
lines to Desire Ledwith, told her strait, and asked if she could
take a little trouble for her, and send her some one.

Mrs. M'Cormick went round to Greenley Street, and de-
livered the note.

* There ! ' said Desire, when she had read it, to Bel Bree
who was in the room. * The Providence mail is in, early ;
and this is for you.'

When Bel had seen what it was, she realised suddenly
that Providence had taken her at her word. She was in for
it now ; here was this thing for her to do. Her breath
shortened with the thought of it, as with a sudden plunge into
water. Who could tell how it would turn out? She had
been so brave in counselling and urging others ; what if she
should make a mistake of it, herself?

* She hasn't anybody ; she would take Kate, maybe. Kate
must just go. It won't be half a chance to try it, if I can't
try it my way.'

* It is a clear stage,' said Desire Ledwith. * If you can

THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM 263

act out your little programme anywhere, you can act it at the
Schermans'.'

* Is it a cellar kitchen ? '

BeU laughed as soon as she had asked the question. She
caught herself turning catechetical at once, after the servant-
girl fashion.'

* I was thinking about Kate. But I don't wonder they in-
quire about things. It's a question of home.'

' Of course it is. There ought to be questions, — on both
parts. Every fair person knows that is fair. Neither side
ought to assume the pure bestowal of a favour. But the one
who has the home already may be supposed to consider at
least as carefully whom she will take in, as she who comes to
offer service as an equivalent. I believe it is a cellar kitchen ;
at least, a basement. The house is on the lower side ; there
must be good windows.'

* rU go right round for Kate, and we'll just call and see. I
don't know in the least how to begin about it when I get there.
I could do the things if I can make out the first understanding.
\ hope Kate won't be very Kate-y ! '

She said so to Miss Sencerbox when she found her.

* You needn't be afraid. Fm bound to astonish somebody.
Impertinence wouldn't do that. I shall strike out a new line.
I'm the cook, — or the chambermaid, — which is it? that they
haven't had any of before. I shall keep my sharp relishes
for our own private table. You might discriminate, Bel ! I
know I've got a kind of a pert, snappy-sounding name, — just
like the outside of me ; but if you stop to look at it, it isn't
Saucebox y but Sensebox! They're related, sometimes, and
they ain't bad together ; but yet, apart, they're different.'

CHAPTER XXVII.

BEL BREE'S CRUSADE : THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM.

Mrs. Frank Scherman's front door-bell rang. Of course
she had to go down and open it herself. When she
did so, she let in two girls, whose pretty faces, bright with a

264 I^HE OTHER GIRLS

sort of curious expectation, met hers in a way by which she
could hardly guess their station or errand.

She did not know them ; they might be anybody's
daughters, yet they hardly looked like technical *your
ladies.'

They stepped directly in without asking ; they moved aside
till she had closed the door against the keen November wind ;
then Bel said,

* We came to see what help you wanted, Mrs. Scherman.
Miss Ledwith told us.'

How did Bel know so quickly that it was Mrs. Scherman ?
There was something in her instant conclusion and her bright
directness that amused Asenath, while it bore its own letter of
recommendation so far.

* Do you mean you wished to inquire for yourselves — or
for either of you ? ' she asked, as she led the way up-stairs.

* I must bring you up where the children are,' she said.
* I cannot leave them.'

They were all in the large back room, with western win-
dows, over the parlour. The doors through a closed passage
stood open into Mrs. Scherman's own. There were blocks,
and linen picture-books, and a red tin waggon full of small
rag dolls, about on the floor. Baby Karen was rolled up in a
blanket on the middle of a bed.

*You see, this is the family, — except Mr. Scherman. I
want two good, experienced girls for general work, and
another to help me here in the nursery. I say two for general
work, because I want some things equally divided, and others
exchanged willingly upon occasion. Do you want places for
yourselves ? '

She paused to repeat the question, hardly sure of the
possibility. These girls did not look much like it. There was
no half-suspicious, half-aggressive expression on their faces
even yet. It was time for it ; time for her own cross-examina-
tion to begin, according to all precedent, if they were really
looking out for themselves. Why didn't they sit up straight
and firm, with their hands in their muffs and their eyes on
hers, and say with a rising inflection and lips that moved as
little as possible, — ' What wages, mum ? ' or ' What's the
conveniences — or the privileges — mum ? '

THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM 265

^el Bree had got her arm round little Sinsie, who had
crept up to her side inquisitively ; and Kate was making a
funny face over her shoulder at Marmaduke, alternately with
the pleased attentive glance she gave to his pretty young
mother and her speaking.

'Yes'm/ Bel answered. *We want places. We are
sewing-girls. We have lost our work by the fire, and we
were getting tired of it before. We have made up our minds
to try families. We want a real place to live, you see. And
we want to go together, so as to make our own place. We
might'n't like things just as they happened, where there was
others.'

Mrs. Scherman's own face lighted up afresh. This was some-
thing that did not happen every day. She grew cordial with
a pleased surprise. ' Do you think you could 1 Do you know
about housework, about cooking ? '

* It's very good of you to put it in that way,' said Kate
Sencerbox. * We just do know about it, and perhaps that's
all, at present. But we're Yankees, and we mean to know.'

* And you would like to experiment with me ? '

' Well, it wouldn't be altogether experiment, from the very
beginning,' said BeL ' I'm sure I can make good bread,
and tea and toast, and broiled chickens, or steaks. I can stew
up sauces ; I can do oysters ; I can make a splendid huckle-
berry pudding ! We had one every Sunday all last August.'

* Where ? ' asked Asenath, gravely.

' In our room ; Aunt Blin and I. Aunt Blin died just after
the fire,' said Bel, simply.

Asenath's gravity grew sweeter and more real ; the tremu-
lous twinkle quieted in her eyes.

' I don't know what to answer you, exactly,' she said,
presently. *This is just what we housekeepers have been
saying ought to happen ; and now that it does happen, I feel
afraid of taking you in. It is very odd ; but the difficulties on
your side begin to come to me. I have no doubt that on my
side it would be lovely. But have you thought about this
" real place to live " that you want ? what it would have to be ?
Do you think you would be contented in a kitchen ? And the
washing? Our washings are so large, with all these little
children ! '

266 THE OTHER GIRLS

Yes, it was odd. Without waiting to be catechised^ or
resenting beforehand the spirit of jealous inquiry, Asenath
Scherman was frankly putting it in the heads of these unused
applicants that there might be doubts as to her service suiting
thenL

' I suppose we could do anything reasonable,' said Kate
Sencerbox.

* I wonder if it is reasonable ! ' said Mrs. Scherman. ' Mr.
Scherman has six shirts a week, and the children's things
count up fearfully, and the ironing is nice work. I'm afraid
you wouldn't think you had any time left for living. The
clothes hardly ever all come up before Thursday morning.'

'And the cooking and all are just the same those days ? '
asked Kate.

'Why yes, pretty nearly, except just Mondays. Monday
always has to be rather awfuL But after that, we do expect
to live. We couldn't hold our breaths till Thursday.'

* I guess there's something that isn't quite reasonable, some-
where,' said Kate. ' But I don't think it's you, Mrs. Scher-
man, not meaningly. I wonder if two or three sensible people
couldn't straighten it out ? There ought to be a way. The
nursery girl helps, doesn't she ? '

' Yes. She does the baby's things. But while baby is so
little, I can't spare her for much more. With doing them^
and her own clothes, I don't seem to have her more than half
the time now.'

Kate Sencerbox sat still, considering.

Bel Bree was afraid that was the last of it. In that one
still minute she could almost feel her beautiful plan crumbling,
by little bits, like a heap of sand in a minute-glass, away into
the opposite end where things had been before, with nobody
to turn them upside down again. Which was upside down,
or right side up ?

She had not thought a word about big, impossible
washings.

Kate spoke out at last.

* Every one brings the work of one, you see,' she said.
'What do you mean ?'

' I wish there -needn't be any nursery girl.'

Mrs. Scherman lifted her eyebrows in utter amaze. The

THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM 267

suggestion to the ordinary Irish mind would have been, as she
had ahready experienced, another nurse ; certainly not .the
dispensing with that official altogether.

'What wages do you pay, Mrs. Scherman?' was Kate's
next question. It came, evidently in the process of a reasoning
calculation ; not, as usual, with the grasping of demand.

' Four dollars to the cook. Which is the cook ?

* I don't believe we know yet,' answered Bel Bree, laughing
in the glee of her recovering spirits. ' But I think it would
probably be me. Kate can make molasses candy, but she
hasn't had the chance for much else. And I should like to
have the kitchen in my charge. I feel responsible for the
home-iness of it, for I started the plan.'

With that covert suggestion and encouragement, she
stopped, leaving the lead to Kate again.
Kate Sencerbox was as earnest as a judge.

* How much to the others ? ' said she.

* Three dollars each.'

* That's ten dollars a week. Now, if you only had Bel and
me, and paid us three or three and a half a piece, couldn't
you put out — say, five dollars' worth of fine washing?
Wouldn't the nurse's board and wages come to that ? And
I'd engage to help with the baby as much as you say you get
helped now.'

* But you would want some time to yourself?

' Babies can't be awake all the time. I guess I should get
it. I've never had anything but evenings, so far. The thing
is, Mrs. Scherman, if I can try this anywhere, I can try it
here. I don't suppose people have got things fixed just as
they would have been if there'd always been a home aill over
the house. If we go to live with anybody, we mean to make
it living /«, not living out. And we shall find out ways as we
go along, — all round. If you're willing, we are. It's Bel's
idea, not mine ; though she's let me take it to myself, and do
the talking. I suppose because she thought I should be the
hardest of the two to be suited. And so I am. I didn't
believe in it at first. But I begin to see into it ; and I've got
interested. I'd like to work it out on this line, now. Then I
shall know.'

There were not many more words after that ; there did not

268 THE OTHER GIRLS

need to be. Mrs. Scherman engaged them to come, at once,
for three dollars and a half a week each.

* It's a kind of a kitchen gospel,' said Bel Bree, as they
walked up Sunmiit Street. 'And it's got to come from the
girls. What can the poor ladies do, up in their nurseries, with
their big houses, full of everything, on their hands, and the
servants dictating and clearing out? They can't say their
souls are their own. They can't plan their work, or say how
many they'll have to do it. The more they have, the more
they'll have to have. It ain't Mr. and Mrs. Scherman, and
those two little children, — or two and a half, — ^that makes
all the to-do. Every girl they get makes the dinners more,
and the Mondays heavier. Why, the family grows faster
down-stairs than up, with a nurse for every baby ! Think of
the tracking and travelling, the wear and tear. Every one
makes work for one, and dirt for two. It's taking in a regi-
ment down below, and laying the trouble all off on to the poor
little last baby up-stairs ! And the ladies don't see through
it. They just keep getting another parlour girl, or door girl,
or nursery girl, and wondering that the things don't grow
easier. It's like that queer rule in arithmetic about fractions,
— where dividing and multiplying get all mixed up, and you
can't hold on to the reason why, in your mind, long enough to
look at it.'

* Why didn't you go down and see the kitchen ? '

' Because, how could she leave those tots to take care of
themselves while she showed us ? Our minds were made up.
You said just the truth ; if we can try it anywhere, we can try
it there. And whatever the kitchen is, it's only our place to
begin on. We'll have it all right, or something near it, before
we've been there a fortnight. It's only a room we take, where
the work is given in to do. If we had one anywhere else, we
should expect to fix up and settle in it according to our own
notions, and why not there ? We're rent-free, and paid for
our work. I'm going to have things of my own; personal
property. If I want a chandelier, I'll save up and get one ;
only I sha'n't want it There's ways to contrive, Kate ; and
real fun doing it.'

An hour afterwards, they were on their way back, with their
leather bags.

THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM 269

Baby Karen was asleep, and Mrs. Scherman came down-
stairs to let them in again, with Marmaduke holding to her
hand, and Sinsie hopping along behind. They all went into
the kitchen together.

Mrs. M'Cormick had * cleared it up,' so that there was at
least a surface tidiness and cheerfulness. The floor was freshly
scrubbed, the table-tops scoured down, the fire made, and the
gas lighted. Mrs. M'Cormick had gone home, to be ready
for her own husband and her two ' boys ' when they should
come in from their work to their suppers.

The kitchen was in an L ; there were two windows looking
out upon a bricked yard. Bel Bree kept the points of the
compass in her head.

* Those are south windows,' said she. * We can have plants
in them. And it's real nice tlieir opening out on a level'

Forward, the house ran underground. They used the front
basement for a store-room. Above the kitchen, in the L, was
the dining-room. A short, separate flight of stairs led to it ;
also a dumb waiter ran up and down between china closet and
kitchen pantry. Both kitchen and dining-room were small ;
the L had only the width of the hall and the additional space
to where the first window opened in the western wall.

In one comer of the kitchen were set tubs ; a long cover
slid over them, and formed a sideboard. Opposite, beside the
fire-place, were sink and boiler ; between the windows, a
white-topped table. There were four dark painted wooden
chairs. A clock over the table, and a rolling-towel beside the
sink ; green Holland window-shades ; these were the only
adornments and drapery. There was a closet at each end of
the room.

' Will you go up to your room now, or wait till after tea ? '
asked Mrs. Scherman.

' We might take up our things now,' said Bell, looking round
at the four chairs. * They would be in the way here, perhaps.'

Kate took up her bag from the table.

* We can find the room,' she said, ' if you will direct us.'

* Up three flights ; two from the dining-room ; the back
chamber. You can stop at my room as you come down, and
we will think about tea. Mr. Scherman will soon be home ;
and I should like to surprise him with something very com-
fortable.'

270 THE OTHER GIRLS

The girls found their way upstairs.

The room, when they reached it, looked pleasant, though
bare. The sun had gone below the horizon, beyond the river,
which they could not see ; but the western light still shone in
across the roofs. There were window-seats in the two windows,
uncushioned. A square of clean, but faded carpet was laid
down before the bed, and reached to the table, — simple maple-
stained pine, uncovered, — that stood beneath a looking-glass
' in a maple frame, between the windows. There were three
maple-stained chairs in the room. A door into a good, deep
closet stood open ; there was a low grate in the chimney,
unused of course, with no fire-irons about it, and some scraps
of refuse thrown into it and left there ; this was the only actual
untidiness about the room, where there was not the first touch
of cosiness or comfort. The only depth of colour was in a
heavy woven dark blue and white counterpane upon the bed.

* Now, Kate Sencerbox, shut up ! ' said Bel Bree, turning
round upon her, after the first comprehensive glance, as Kate
came in last, and closed the door.

Kate put her muff down on the bed, folded her hands
meekly, and looked at Bel with a mischievous air that said
plainly enough, * Ain't I ? ' and which she would not falsify by
speech.

* Yes, I know you are ; but — stay^ shut up ! All this isn't
as it is a going to be, — though it's not bad even now ! '

Kate resolutely stayed shut up.

^ You see that carpet is just put there ; within this last hour,
I dare say. Look at the clean ravel in the end. They've
taken away the old, tramped one. Thaf s a piece out of saved-
up spare ends of breadths, left after some turn-round or make-
over, I know I It's faded, and it's homely ; but it's spandy-
clean ! I sha'n't let it stay ravelled long. And I've got things.
Just wait till my trunk comes. My ottoman, I mean. Thaf s
what it turns into. Have you got a stuffed cover to your
trunk, Katie ? '

Kate lifted up her eyebrows for permission to break silence.
' Of course you can, when you're asked a question. You've
had time now for second thoughts. I wasn't going to let you
fly right out with discouragements.'

* It is you that flies out with taking for granteds,' said

THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM 271

Kate Sencerbox, in a subdued monotone of quietness. ' I was
only going to remark that we had got neither cellar windows,
nor attic skylights after all. I'm favourably surprised with
the accommodations. Pve paid four dollars a week for a great
deal worse. And I wouldn't cast reflections by arguing
objections that haven't been made^ if I were the leader of this
enterprise, Miss Bree.'

' Kate ! That's what I call real double lock-stitch pluck !
That goes back of everything. You needn't shut up any more.
Now let's come down and see about supper.'

They had pinned on linen aprons, with three-cornered bibs ;
such as they wore at their machines. When they came down
into Mrs. Scherman's room, that young matron said within
herself, — ' I wonder if it's real or if we're in a charade ! At
any rate, well have a real tea in the play. They do some-
times.'

' What is the nicest, and quickest, and easiest thing to get,
I wonder?' she asked of her waiting ministers. * Don't say
toast. We're so tired of toast ! '

* Do you like muffins and stewed oysters ? ' asked Bel Bree,
drawing upon her best experience.

' Very much,' Mrs. Scherman answered.
And Kate, looking sharply on, delighted herself with the
guarded astonishment that widened the lady's beautiful eyes.

* Only we have neither muffins nor oysters in the house ;
and the grocery and the fish-market are down round the
corner, in Selcbar Street.'

* I could go for them right off. What time do you have
tea?'

Really, Asenath Scherman had never acted in a charade
where her cues were so unexpected.

* I wonder if I'm getting mixed up again,' she thought
<Whichw the cook?'

Of course a cook never would have offered to go out and
order muffiil^ and oysters. Mrs. Scherman could not have
{isked it of the parlour-maid.

Kate Senccirbox relieved her.

' I'll go, Bel,' she interposed. ' I guess it's my place. That
is, if you like, Mrs. Scherman.'

* I like it exceedingly,' said Asenath, congratulating herself

272 THE OTHER GIRLS

upon the happy inspiration of her answer, which was not sur-
prise nor thanks, but cordial and pleased enough for either.
* The shops are next each other, just beyond Filbert Street.
Have the things charged to Mrs. Francis Scherman. A quart
of oysters, — and how many muffins ? A dozen, I think ; then
if there are two or three left, theyll be nice for breakfast.
They will send them up. Say that we want them directly.'

* I can bring the muffins. I suppose they'll want the oyster-
can back.'

It may be a little doubtful whether Kate's spirit of supere-
rogatory doing would have gone so far, if it had not been for
the deliciousness of piling up the wonder. She retreated,
upon the word, magnanimously, remitting further reply ; and
Bel directly after descended to her kitchen, to make the need-
ful investigations among saucepans and toasters.

* Don't be frightened at anything you may find,' Mrs. Scher-
man said to her as she went ' I won't answer for the insides
of cupboards and pans. But we will make it all right as fast
as possible. You shall have help if you need it ; and at the
worst, we can throw away and get new, you know. Suppose,
Bel,' she added, with enchanting confidence and accustomed-
ness, ' we were to have a cup of coffee with the oysters ? There
is some real Mocha in the japanned canister in the china
closet, and there are eggs in the pantry, to clear with ; you
know how ? Mr. Scherman is so fond of coffee.'

Bel knew how ; and Bel assented. As the door closed
after her, below-stairs, Mrs. Scherman caught up Sinsie into
her lap, and gave her a great congratulatory hug.

' Do you suppose it will last, little womanie ? If it isn't all
gone in the morning, what comfort well have in keeping house
and taking care of baby!'

The daughter is so soon the 'little womanie' to the mother's
loving anticipation.

Marmaduke was lustily struggling with and shouting to a
tin horse six inches long, and tipping up a cart filled with
small pebbles on the carpet. He was outside already ; the
housekeeping was nothing to him, except as it had to do with
the getting in of coals.

When Mr. Scherman opened the front door, the delicious
aroma of oysters and coffee saluted his chilled and hungry

'LIVING IN' 273

senses. He wondered if there were unexpected company, and
what Asenath could have done about it. He passed the parlour
door cautiously, but there was no sound of voices. Up-stairs,
all was still ; the children were in crib and cradle, and Asenath
was shaking and folding little garments, — shapes out of which
the busy spirits had slidden.

He came up behind her, where she stood before the fire.

* All well, little mother V he questioned. * Or tired to death }
There are festive odours in the house. Has anybody repented
and come back again ? '

'Not a bit of it!' Sin exclaimed triumphantly, turning
round and facing him, all rosy with the loving romp she had
been having just a little while before with her babies. * Frank !
I've got a pair of Abraham's angels down-stairs ! Or Mrs.
Abraham's, — if she ever had any. I don't remember that
they used to send them to women much, now I think of it,
after Eve demeaned herself to entertain the old serpent. Ah !
the babies came instead ; that was it ! Well ; there is a
couple in the kitchen now, at any rate ; and they're toasting
and stewing in the most E — /j^jian manner ! That's what you
smelL'

' Angels ? Babies ? What terrible ambiguity ? What, or
who, is stewing, if you please, dear ? '

' Muffins. No ! oysters. There ! you sha'n't know any-
thing about it till you go down to tea. But the millennium's
come, and if s begun in our house.'

' I knew that, six years ago,' said Frank Scherman. ' There
are exactly nine hundred and ninety-four left of it. I can
wait till tea-time with the patience of the saints.'

CHAPTER XXVni.

'LIVING IN.'

Desire Ledwith went over to Leicester Place with Bel
Bree, when she returned there for the first needful sorting and
packing and removing. Bel could not go alone, to risk any
meeting ; to put herself, voluntarily and unprotected in the

274 THE OTHER GIRLS

way again. Miss Ledwith took a carriage and called for her.
In that manner they could bring away nearly alL What re-
mained could be sent for.

Miss Smalley possessed some moveables of her own, though
the furnishings in her room had been mostly Mrs. Pimmin/s.
There were some things of her aunt's that Bel would like, and
which she had asked leave to bring to Mrs. Scherman's.

The light, round table, with its old-fashioned slender legs
and claw feet, its red cloth, and the books and little orna-
ments, Bel wanted in her sleeping-room. ' Because they were
Aunt Blinds,' she said, 'and nothing else would seem so
pleasant. She should like to take them with her wherever
she went.'

The two trunks — hers and Kat/s — (Bel had Aunt Blin's
great flat-topped one now, with its cushion and flounce of
Turkey red ; and Kate had speedily stitched up a cover for
hers to match, of cloth that Mrs. Scherman gave her) stood
one each side the chimney, — in the recesses. A red and
white patchwork quilt, done in stars, Bel's own work before
she ever came to Boston, lay folded across the foot of the bed,
in patriotic contrast with the blue, — reversing the colours in
stars and stripes. Bel had found in the attic a discarded
stairway drugget, scarlet and black, of which the centre was
worn to threads, but the bright border still remained ; and
this she had asked for and sewed around the square of neutral-
tinted carpet, upon whose middle the round table stood,
covering its dulness with red again, the colour of the cloth.
There was plenty of bordering left, of which she pieced a foot-
mat for the floor before the dressing-glass ; and in the open
grate now lay a little unlighted pile of kindlings and coals, as
carefully placed behind well blackened bars and a facing of
paper, as that in the parlour below.

' It looks nice,' Bel said to Mrs. Scherman, ' and we don't
expect to light it, unless one of us is sick, or something.'

* Light it whenever you wish for it,' Mrs. Scherman had
replied. ' I am perfectly willing to trust your reasonableness
for that.

So on Sunday afternoons, or of a bitter cold morning, they
had their own Uttle blaze to sit or dress by ; and it made the
difference of a continual feeling of cheeriness and comfort to

'LIVING IN' 275

them, always possible when not immediately actual ; and of a
bushel or two of coal, perhaps, in the winter's supply of fuel.

' Where were the babies of a Sunday afternoon, — and how
about the offered tending ? '

This was one more place for them also ; a treat and a
change to Sinsie and ^armaduke, or -a perfectly safe and
sweet and comfortable resource in tending Baby Karen, who
would lie content on the soft quilts by the half hour, feeling
in the blind, ignorant way that little babies certainly do, the
novelty and rest.

The household, you see, was melting into one ; the spirit of
home was above and below. It was home as much as wages,
that these girls had come for; and they expected to help make
it. Not that they parted jvith their own individual lives and
interests, either ; every one must have things that are separate;
it is the way human souls and lives are made. It would have
"been so witii daughters or sisters. But in a true living, it is
the individual interests that at once aggregate and specialize ;
it is a putting into the common stock that which must be
distinct and real that it may be put in at all. It was not
money and goods alone that the early Christians had in
common.

Instead of a part of their house being foreign and distaste-
ful, — tolerated through necessity only, that the rest might be
ministered to, — there was a region in it, now, of new, ex-
tended family pleasure. *It was as good as. building out a
conservatory, or a billiard-room,' Asenath said. * It was just
so much more to enjoy.'

There was a little old rocking-chair, railed round till it was
almost like a basket, with just a break in the front palings to
sit into. It had a soft down cushion, covered with a damask-
patterned patch of wild and divaricating device; and its
rockers were short, giving a jerk and thud if you leaned to
and fro in it, like the trot an old nurse gives a child in an
ordinary, four-legged, impracticable seat. All the better for
that ; the rockers were not in the way : and old Aunt Blin
had wanted of it as a sewing chair, was to tip conveniently,
as she might wish to bend and reach, to pick up scissors or
spool, or draw to herself any of those surroundings of part,

276 THE OTHER GIRLS

pattern, or material, which are sure, at the moment one wants
them, to be on the opposite side of the table.

Bel brought this away from Leicester Place, and had it in
the kitchen. Mrs. Scherman, then, seeing that there re-
mained for Kate only the choice of the four wooden chairs,
and pleased with the cosy expression they were causing to per-
vade their precincts, suggested their making space for a short,
broad lounge that she would spare to them from an upper room
which was hardly ever used. It was an old one that she had
had sent from home among some otherthings that were remini-
scences, when her father and mother, the second year after her
marriage, had broken up their household in New York, and
resolved on a holiday, late in life, in Europe. It was a com-
fortable, shabby old thing, that she had used to curl up on
to learn her German, with the black kitten in her lap, and the
tip of its tail for a pointer. She had always meant to cover
it new, but had never had time. There was a large gray
travelling shawl folded over it now, making extra padding for
back and seat, and the thick fringe fell below, a garnishing-
along the front.

' Let it be,' said Asenath. ' I don't think you'll set the
soup-kettle or the roasting-pan down on. it ; and you can
always shake it out fresh and make it comfortable. It was
only getting full of dust up-stairs. There's a square pillow in
the trunk-room that you can have too, and cover with some-
thing. A five minutes' level rest is nice, between times, I
know. I wondet I never thought of it before.'

How would Bel or Kate have ever got a 'five minutes' level
rest ' over their machine-driving at Fillmer & Bylles' ? Bel had
said well, that girls and women need to Work under cover ; in
a homey where they can * rest by snatches.' A mere roof is
not a cover ; there may be driving afield in a great ware-
house, as well as out upon a plantation.

The last touch and achievement was more of the dun-gray
carpet, like that in their bedroom, and more of the scarlet
and black stair-border, made into a rug, which was spread
down when work was over, and rolled up under the table
when dinner was to dish, or a wash was going on. They had
been with Mrs. Scherman a month before they ventured upon
that asking.

'LIVING IN' .277

When it was finished, Sin bro»jght her husband down after
tea one night to look at it.

' It is the most fascinating room in the house/ she said.

There was a side gas-light over the white-topped table,
burning brightly. Upon the table were work-baskets, and a
volume from the Public Library. The lounge was just turned
out from the wall a little, towards it, and opposite stood the
round rocking-chair. Cheeps, in his cage at the farther
window, was asleep in a yellow ball, his head under his wing.
Bel was hanging the last dish-towel upon a little folding-
horse in the chimney comer, and they could hear Kate
singing up-stairs to a gentle clatter of the dishes that she was
putting away from the dining-room use.

* It looks as a kitchen ought to,' said Mr. Scherman. 'As
my grandmother's used to look ; as if all the house-comfort
came from it'

* It isn't a place to forbid children out of, is it ?' asked
Asenath.

' I should think the only condition would be their own best
behaviour,' returned her husband.

' They're almost always good down here,' said BeL Children
like to be where things are doing. They always feel put
away, out of the good" times, I think, in a nursery.'

' My housekeeping is all turning round on a new pivot,'
said Sin to Frank, after they were seated again up-stairs.
* Don't take up the " Skelligs " yet ; I want to tell you. If
I thought the pivot would really stay, there are two or three
more things I should do. And one of them is, — I'd have the
nursery— a day nursery — down-stairs; that is, if I could
coax you into it.'

* It seems the new pivot is two very large ' ifs,' said Frank,
laughing. * And not much space to turn in, either. Would
you take the cellar, or build out ? And if so, where ? '

'I'd take the dining-room, Frank; and eat in the back
parlour.

* I wish you would. I don't like dining-rooms. I was
brought up to a back parlour.'

' You do ? You don't ? You were ? Why, Frank, I thought
you'd hate it,' cried Asenath, pouring forth her exclamations
all in a heap, and coming round to lean upon his shoulder. I

278 THE OTHER GIRLS

wish I'd told you before ! Just think of those south dining-
room windows, that they'll have the good of all the forenoon,
and that all we do with is to shade them down at dinner-time !
And the horse-chestnut tree and the grape-vines making it
green and pleasant, by and by ! And the saving of going
over the stairs, and the times one of the girls might help me,
when I couldrCt ring her away up to my room ; and the ten-
ding of table, with baby only to be looked after in here. Why,
I should sit here myself, mornings, always ; and everything
would be all together ; and the up-stairs work, — it would be
better than two nurse-girls to have it so ! '

'Then why not have it so right off? The more you turn
on your pivot, the smoother it gets, you know. And the more
nicely you balance and concentrate, the longer your machine
will last'

Asenath lay awake late, and woke early, that night and the
next morning, ' planning.'

When Frank saw a certain wide, intent, shining, 'don't-
speak-to-me ' look in her eyes, he always knew that she was
'planning.' And he had found that out of her plans almost
always resulted some charming novelty, at least, that gave
one the feeling of beginning life over again ; if it were only
the putting of his bureau on the other side of the room, so
that he started the wrong way for a few days, whenever he
wanted to get a clean collar ; or the setting the bedstead with
side instead of head to the wall ; issuing in delightful bewil-
derments of. mind, when wakened suddenly and asked to find
a match or tui:n up the dressing-room gas in the night, to
meet some emergency of the baby's.

This time the development was a very busy Friday fore-
noon ; in which the silver rubbing was omitted, and the
dinner preparations put off, — the man who came for ' chores '
detained for heavy lifting, — the large dining-table turned up
on edge and rolled into the back parlour, the sideboard
brought in and put in the place of a sofa, which was wheeled
to an obtuse angle with the fire-place, — nine square yards
of gray drugget, with a black Etruscan border, sent up by
Mr. Scherman from Lovejoy's, and tacked carefully down by
seam and stripe, under Asenath's personal direction ; cradle,
rocking-horse, baby-house, tin carts and picture-books re-

'LIVING IN' 279

moved from the nursery and arranged in the new quarters, —
the children themselves following back and forth untiringly,
with their one-foot-foremost hop over the stairs, and their
hands clasping the rods of the balusters, — some little shabby
treasure always hugged in the spare arm ; chairs and crickets,
and the low table suited to their baby-chairs, at which they
played and ate, transferred also ; until Asenath stood with a
sudden sadness in the deserted chamber, reduced to the
regular bedroom furnishings, and looking dead and bleak
with the little life gone out of it.

But the warm south sun was beaming full into the pretty
room below, where the small possessors of a whole new,
beautiful world were chattering and dancing with delight ;
and up here, by and by, the western shine would come to
meet them at their bedtime, and the new moon and the star-
twinkle would peep in upon their sleep.

With her own hands, Asenath made the room as fresh and
nice as could be ; put little frilled covers over the pillows of
the low bed, and on the half-high bureau top ; brought in and
set upon the middle of this last a slender vase from her own
table, with a tea-rose in it, and said to herself when all was
done, —

'How sweet and still it will be for them to come up to,
after all ! It isn't nice for children to be put to sleep in the
midst of the whole day's muss ! '

The final thing was done the next morning. The carpenter
came and put a little gate across the head of the short stair-
way, which would now only be used as required between
play-room and kitchen ; the back stairway of the main house
giving equal access on the other side to the parlour dining-
room. China closet and dumb waiter were luckily in that
angle, also.

A second little railed gate barred baby trespass into the
halls. The sparrows were caged again.

' What would you have done if they hadn't been ? ' asked
Hazel Ripwinkley, speaking of the china closet and dumb
waiter happening to be just as they were. She had come
over one morning with Miss Craydocke, for a nursery visit
and to see the new arrangements.

'What should we have done if anything hadn't been?'

28o THE OTHER GIRLS

asked Asenath, in return. 'Everything always has been,
somehow, in my life. I don't believe we have anything to do
with the " ifs " way back — do you, Miss Hapsie ? We couldn't
stop short of the " if" out of which we came into the world, —
or the world came out of darkness ! I think that's the very
beauty of living.'

* The very everlasting livingness/ said Miss Hapsie. ' We
don't want to see the strings by which the earths and moons
are hung up ; nor, any more, the threads that hold our little
daily possibilities.'

Asenath had other visitors, sometimes, with whom it was
not so easy to strike the key-note of things.

Glossy Megilp and her mother had come home from
Europe. They and the Ledwiths were in apartments in one
of the great ' Babulous ' hotels, as Sin called them, with a
mingling of idea and etymology.

* Gk)od places enough,' she said, * for the prologue and the
epilogue of life ; but not for the blessed meanwhile ; for the
acting of all the dear heart and home parts.'

* The two families had managed very well by taking two
small ' suites ' and making a common parlour ; thus bestowing
themselves in one room less than they could possibly have
done apart. They were very comfortable and content ; made
economical breakfasts and teas together, dined at the cafd,
and had long forenoons in which to run about and look in
upon their friends.

Glossy had always 'cultivated' Asenath Scherman; for
though that young dame lived at present a very retired and
domestic life, Miss Megilp was quite aware that she might
come out, and in precisely the right place, at any minute she
chose ; and meanwhile it was exceedingly suitable to know
her well in this same intimate privilege of domesticity.

Glossy Megilp was very polite ; but she did not believe in
the new order of things ; and her eyelids and the comers
of her mouth showed it. Mrs. Megilp admired ; thought it
lovely for Asenath just now; but of course not a thing to
count upon, or to expect generally. In short, they treated it
all as a whim ; a coincidence of whims. Asenath, although
she would not trouble herself about the ' ifs away back,' had

'LIVING IN 281

a spirit of looking forward which impelled her to argue against
and clear away prospective ones.

* Bad things have lasted long enough/ she said ; ' I don't
see why the good ones should not, when once they have
begun.'

* They won't begin ; one swallow never makes a summer.
This has happened to you, but it is absolutely exceptional ; it
will never be pandemic,' said Mrs. Megilp, who was fond of
picking up little knowing 'terms of speech, and delivering her-
self of them at her earliest subsequent convenience.

' " Never " is the only really imposing word in the lan-
guage,' said Asenath, innocently. ' I don't believe either you
or I quite understand it. But I fancy everything begins with
exceptions, and happens in spots, — ^from the settling of a con-
tinent to the doing up of back-hair in new fashions. I
shouldn't wonder if it were an excellent way to take life, to
make it as exceptional as you can, in all unexceptionable
directions. To help to thicken up the good spots till the
world gets confluent with them. I suppose that is what is
meant by making one's mark in it, don't you ? '

Mrs. Megilp headed about, as if in the turn the talk had
taken she suddenly found no thoroughfare ; and asked Asenath
if she had been to hear Rubinstein.

Of course it was not in talk only, that — ^up-stairs or down-
stairs — the exceptional household found its difficulties. It was
not all pleasant arranging and contriving for an undeviating
* living happy ever after.'

There were days now and then when the baby fretted, or
lost her nap, and somebody had to hold her nearly all the
time ; when the door-bell rang as if with a continuous and
concerted intent of malice. Stormy Mondays happened when
clothes would not dry, entailing Tuesdays and Wednesdays
and Thursdays of interrupted and irregular service elsewhere.

If Asenath Scherman's real life had been anywhere but in
her home and with her children, — if it had consisted in being
dressed in train-skirt and panier, lace sleeves and bracelets,
with hair in a result of hour-long elaboration, at twelve o'clock ;
or of being out making calls in high street toilet from that
time until two ; or if her strength had had to be reserved for

282 THE OTHER GIRLS

and repaired after evening parties ; if family care had been
merely the constantly increasing friction which the whole
study of the art of living must be to reduce and evade, that
the real purpose and desire might sweep on unimpeded, — she
would soon have given up her experiment in despair.

Or if, on the other part, there had been a household below,
struggling continually to escape the necessity it was paid to
meet, that it might get to its own separate interests and * privi-
leges,' — if it had been utterly foreign and unsympathic in idea
and perception, only watchful that no 'hand's turn ' should be
required of it beyohd those set down in the bond, — resenting
every occurrence, however unavoidable, which changed or
modified the day's ordering, — there would speedily have come
the old story of worry, discontent, unreliance, disruption.

But Asenath's heart was with her little ones ; she went back
into her own childhood with and for them, bringing out of it
and living over again all its bright, blessed little ways.

' She would be grown up again,' she said, ' by and by, when
they were.'

She was keeping herself winsomely gay and fresh against
the time, — laying up treasure in the kingdom of all sweet har-
monies and divine intents, that need not be banished beyond
the grave, — although of that she never thought It would
come by and by, for her reward.

She played with Sinsie in her baby-house ; she did over
again, with her, in little, the things she was doing on not so
very much larger scale for actual every day. She invented
plays for Marmaduke which kept the little man in him busy and
satisfied. She collected, eagerly^ all treasures of small song
and story and picture, to help build the world of imagination
into which all child-life must open out.

As for Baby Karen, she was, for the most part, only mani-
fest as one of those little embodiments that are but given and
grown out of such loyal and happy motherhood. She was a
real baby, — not a little interloping animal. She was never
nursed or tended in a hurry. Babies blossom, as plants do,
under the tender touch.

Kate Sencerbox, or Bel Bree, was glad to come into this
nest-warm pleasantness, when the mother must leave it for a
while. It was not an irkesomeness flung by, like a tangled

'LIVING IN* 283

skein, for somebody else to tug at and unravel ; it was a joy
in running order.

When the hard Monday came, or the baby had her little
tribulations, or it took a good tithe of the time to nm and tell
callers that Mrs. Scherman was ' very much engaged ' — (why
can't it be the fashion to put those messages out upon the
door-knob, or to tie it up with — a silk duster, or a knot of
tape }) Kate or Bel would look one at another and say, as they
began with saying, — ' Now, shut up ! ' It was an understood
thing that they were not to 'fly out with discouragements.'

And nobody knows how many things would straighten them-
selves if that could only be made the law of the land.

On Wednesday evenings, Mrs. Scherman always managed
it that they should both go to Desire Ledwith's, for the Read-
and-Talk.

You may say Jerusalem is not taken yet, after all ; there are
plenty of 'hard places,' where girls like Kate Sencerbox and
Bel Bree would not stay a week ; there are hundreds of
women, heads of houses, who would not be bothered with so
much superfluous intelligence, — with refinements so nearly on
a level with their own.

Granted : but it is the first steps that cost. Do you not
think — do you not know — that a real good, planted in the
world, — ^in social living, — must spread, from point to point
where the circumstance is ready, where it is the ' next thing ? '
If you do not believe this, you do not practically believe in the
kingdom ever coming at all.

There is a rotation of crops in living and in communities,
as well as in the order of vegetation of secret seeds that lie in
the earth's bosom.

We shall not always be rank with noisome weeds and
thistles ; here and there, the better thought is swelling toward
the germination ; the cotyledons of a fairer hope are rising
through the mould.

284 THE OTHER GIRLS

CHAPTER XXIX.

WINTERGREEN.

To tell of what has been happening with Sylvie Argenter*s
thread of our story, we must go back some weeks and pages
to the time just after the great fire.

As it was with the spread of the conflagration itself, so it
proved also with the results, — of loss, and deprivation, and
change. Many seemed at first to stand safely away out on
the margin, mere lookers-on, to whom presently, with more or
less direct advance, the great red wave of ruin reached,
touching, scorching, consuming.

It was a week afterwards that Sylvie Argenter learned that
the Manufacturers* Insurance Company, in which her mother
had, at her persuasion, invested the little actual, tangible
remnant of her property, had found itself swallowed up in its
enormous debt ; must reorganise, begin again, with fresh
capital and new stockholders.

They had nothing to reinvest. The money in the Conti-
nental Bank would just about last through the winter, paying
the seven dollars a week for Mrs. Argenter, and spending as
nearly nothing for other things as possible. Unless something
came from Mr. Farron Saftleigh Ifefore the spring, that would
be the end.

Thus far they had heard nothing from these zealous friends
since they had parted from them at Sharon, except one
sentimental letter from Mrs. Farron Saftleigh to Mrs. Argenter,
written from Newport in September.

Early in December, another just such missive came, this
time from Denver City. Not a word of business ; a pure
woman's letter, as Mrs. Farron Saftleigh chose to rank a
woman's thought and sympathy ; nothing practical, nothing
that had to do with coarse topics of bond and scrip ; taking
the common essentials of life for granted, referring to the in-
ignorable catastrophe of the fire as a grand elemental pheno-
menon and spectacle, and soaring easily away and beyond all
fact and literalness into the tender vague, the rare empyrean.

WINTERGREEN 285

Mrs. Argenter read it over and over, and wished plaintively
that she could go out to Denver, and be near her friend. She
should like a new place ; and such appreciation and affection
were not to be met with everywhere, or often in a lifetime.

Sylvie read the letter once, and had great necessity of self-
restraint not to toss it contemptuously and indignantly into the
fire.

She made up her mind to one thing, at least ; that if, at the
end of the six months, nothing were heard from Mr. Saftleigh
himself, she would write to him upon her own responsibility,
and demand some intelligence as to her mother's investments
in the Latterend and Donnowhair road, the reason why a
dividend was not forthcoming, and a statement in regard to
actual or probable sales of land, "which he had given them
reason to expect would before that time have been made.

One afternoon she had gone down with Desire and Hazel
among the shops ; Desire and the Ripwinkleys were very busy
about Christmas ; they had ever so many * notches to fill in '
in their rather mixed up and mutable memoranda. Sylvie
only accompanied them as far as Winter Street comer, where
she had to buy some peach-coloured double-zephyr for her
mother ; then she bade them good-by, saying that two were
bad enough dragging each other about with their two shop-
ping lists, but that a third would extinguish fatally both time
and space ; and taking her little parcel in her band, and won-
dering how many more such she could ever buy, she returned
home over the long hill alone. So it happened that on reach-
ing Greenley Street, she had quite to herself a surprise and
pleasure which she found there.

She went straight to the gray room first of all.

Mrs. Argenter was asleep on the low sofa near the fire,
her crochet stripe-work fallen by her side upon the carpet,
her book laid face down with open leaves upon the cushion.

Sylvie passed softly into her own chamber, took off her
outside things, and returned with careful steps through her
mother's room to the hall, and into the library, to find a book
which she wanted.

On the table, at the side which had come of late to be con-
sidered hers, lay an express parcel directed to herself. She
knew the writing, — the capital 'S' made with a quick.

286 THE OTHER GIRLS

upward, slanting line, and finished with a swell and curl upon
itself like a portly figure * 5 ' with the top pennant left off ; the
round sweep after final letters, — the * t's ' crossed backward
from their roots, and the stroke stopped short like a little
rocket just in poise of bursting. She knew it all by heart,
though she had never received but one scrap of it before, —
the card that had been tied to the ivy-plant, with Rodney
Sherretfs name and compliments.

She had heard nothing now of Rodney for two months.
She was glad to be alone to wonder at this, to open it with
fingers that trembled, to see what he could possibly have put
into it for her.

Within the brown wrapper was a square white box. Up
in the comer of its cover was a line of writing in the same
hand ; the letters very small, and a delicate dash drawn
under them. How neatly special it looked.

'A message from the woods for Sylvia.'

She lifted it off, as if she were lifting it from over a thought
that it concealed, a something within all, that waited for her
to see, to know.

Inside, — well, the thought was lovely !

It was a mid- winter wreath ; a wreath of things that wait
in the heart of the woodland for the spring ; over which the
snows slowly gather, keeping them like a secret which must
not yet be told, but which peeps green and fresh and full of
life at every melting, in soft, sunny weather, such as comes
by spells beforehand ; that must have been gathered by some-
body who knew the hidden places and had marked them
long ago.

It was made of clusters, here and there, of the glossy daphne-
like winteigreen, and most delicate, tiny, feathery plumes of
princess-pine ; of stout, brave, constant little shield-ferns and
spires of slender, fine-notched spleenwort, such as thrust
themselves up from rock-crevices and tell what life is, that
though the great stones are rolled against the doors of its
sepulchre, yet finds its way from the heart of things, some-
how, to the light. Mitchella vines, with thread-like,
wandering stems, and here and there a gleaming scarlet berry
among small, round, close-lying waxy leaves ; breaths of
silvery moss, like a frosty vapour; these fiung a grace of

WINTERGREEN 287

lightness over the closer garlanding, and the whole lay upon
a bed of exquisitely curled and laminated soft gray lichen.

A message. Yes, it was a simple thing, an imostentatious
remembrance ; no breaking, surely, of his father's conditions.
Rodney loyally kept away and manfully stuck to his business,
but every spire, and frond, and leaf of green in this winter
wreath shed off the secret, magnetic meaning with which it
was charged. Heart-light flowed from them, and touching
the responsive sensitivity, made photographs that pictured
the whole story. It was a fuller telling of what the star-
leaved ferns had told before.

Rodney was not to ' offer himself to Sylvie Argenter till
the two years were over ; he was to let her have her life and
its chances ; he was to prove himself, and show that he could
earn and keep a little money ; he was to lay by two thousand
dollars. , This was what he had undertaken to do. His father
thought he had a right to demand these two years, even ex-
tending beyond the term of legal freedom, to offset the half-
dozen of boyish, heedless extravagance, before he should put
mon^y into his son's hands to begin responsible work with, or
consent approvingly to his making of what might be only a
youthful attraction, a tie to bind him solemnly and unalterably
for life.

But the very stones cry out. The meaning that is repressed
from speech intensifies in all that is permitted. You may
keep two persons from being nominally ' engaged,' but you
cannot keep two hearts, by any mere silence, from finding
each other out ; and the inward betrothal in which they trust
and wait, — that is the most beautiful time of all. The blessed-
ness of acknowledgment, when it comes, is the blessedness
of owning and looking back together upon what has already
been.

Sylvie made a space for the white box upon a broad old
bureau top in her room. She put its cover on again over the
message in green cipher ; she would only care to look at it on
purpose, and once in a while ; she would not keep it out to
the fading light and soiling touch of every day. She spread
across the cover itself and its written sentence her last re-
maining broidered and laced handkerchief. The wreath
would dry, she knew ; it must lose its first glossy freshness

288 THE OTHER GIRLS

with which it had come from under the snows ; but it should
dry there where Rodney put it, and not a leaf should fall out
of it and be lost.

She was happier in these subtle signs that revealed inward
relation than she would have been just now in an outspoken-
ness that demanded present, definite answer and acceptance
of outward tie. It might come to be ; who could tell ? But
if she had been asked now to let it be, there would have been
her troubles to give, with her affection. How could she
burden anybody doubly.? How could she fling all her needs
and anxieties into the life of one she cared for ?

There was a great deal for Sylvie to do between now and
any marriage. Her worry soon came back upon her with a
dim fear, as the days passed on, touching the very secret hope
and consciousness that she was happy in. What might come
to be her plain duty, now, very shortly 1 Something, perhaps,
that would change it all ; that would make it seem strange
and unsuitable for Rodney Sherrett ever to interpret that fair
message into words. Something that would put social dis-
tance between them.

Her mother, above all, must be cared for ; and her mother's
money was so nearly gone !

Desire Ledwith was kind, but she must not live on any-
body's kindness. As soon as she possibly could, she must
find something to do. There must be no delay, no lingering,
after the little need there was of her here now, should cease.
Every day of willing waiting would be a day of dishonourable
dependence.

It was now three months since Mrs. Froke had gone away;
and letters firom her brought the good tidings of successful
surgical treatment and a rapid gaining of strength. She might
soon be able to come back. Sylvie knew that Desire could
either continue to contrive work for her a while longer, or spare
her to other and more full employment, could such be found.
She watched the ' Transcript ' Ust of ' Wants,' and wished
there might be a ' Want ' made expressly for her.

How many anxious eyes scan those columns through with
a like longing, every night !

If she could get copying to do, — if she could obtain a situa-
tion in the State House, that paradise of well-paid female

WINTERGREEN 289

scribes ! If she could even learn to set up type, and be em-
ployed in a printing-office ? If there were any chance in a
library ? Even work of this sort would take her away from
her mother in the daytime ; she would have to {)rovide some
attendance for her. She must furnish her room nicely, wher-
ever it was ; that she could do from the remnants of their
household possessions stored at Dorbury * and her mother
must have a delicate little dinner every day. For breakfast
and tea — she could see to those before and after work ; and
her own dinners could be anything, — anywhere. She must
get a cheap room, where some tidy lodging woman would do
what was needful ; and that would take, — oh, dear ! she
couldr^t say less than six or seven dollars a week, and where
were food and clothes to come from 1 At any rate, she must
begin before their present resources were utterly exhausted,
or what would become of her mother's cream, and fruit, and
beef-tea ?

Mingled with all her troubled and often-reviewed calcula^
tions, would intrude now and then the thought, — shouldn't she
have to be willing to wear out and grow ugly, with hard work
and insufficient nourishing .? And she would have so liked to
keep fresh and pretty for the time that might have come !

In the days when these things were keeping her anxious,
the winter wreath was also slowly turning dry.

She found herself hemmed in and headed at every turn by
the pitiless hedge and ditch of circumstance, at which girls
and women in our time have to chafe and wait ; and from
which there seems to be no way out. Yet there are ways out
from this, as from all things. One way — the way of thorough
womanly home-helpfulness — ^was not clear to her ; there are
many to whom it is not clear. Yet if those to whom it is, or
might be, would take, — if those who might give it, in many
forms, would give, — who knows what relief and loosening
would come to others in the hard jostle and press?

There is another way out of all puzzle and perplexity and
hardness ; it is the Lord's special way for each one, that we
cannot foresee, and that we never know until it comes. Then
we discern that there has never been impossibility ; that all
things are open before his eyes ; and that there is no tempta-

290 THE OTHER GIRLS

tion, — no trying of us, — to which He will not provide some
end or escape.

In the first week of January, Sylvie acted upon her resolve
of writing to Mr. Farron Saftleigh. She asked brief and direct
questions ; told him that she was obliged to request an answer
without the least delay ; and begged that he would render
them a clear statement of all their affairs. She reminded him
that he had told them that he would be responsible for their
receiving a dividend of at least four per cent at the end of
the six months.

Mr. Farron Saftleigh 'told' people a great many things in
his genial, exhilarating business talks, which he was a^ great
deal too wise ever to put down on paper.

Sylvie waited ten days ; a fortnight ; three weeks ; no
answer came. Mr. Farron Saftleigh had simply destroyed
the letter, of no consequence at all as coming from a person
not primarily concerned or authorised, and set off from
Denver City the same day for a business visit to San
Francisco.

Sylvie saw the plain fact ; that they were penniless. And
this could not be told to her mother.

She went to Desire Ledwith, and asked her what she
could do.

' I would go into a household anywhere, as Dot Ingraham
and Bel Bree have done, to earn board and wages, and spend
my money for my mother ; but I can't leave her. And there's
no sewing work to get, even if I could do it at night and in
honest spare time. I know, as it is, that my service isn't
worth what you give me in return, and of course I cannot stay
here any longer now.'

^Of course you can stay where God puts you, dear,'
answered Desire Ledwith. ' Let your side of it alone for a
minute, and think of mine. If you were in my place, — trying
to live as one of the large household^ remember, and looking
for your opportunities, — ^what would you say, — ^what would
you plainly hear said to you, — about this ?'

Sylvie was silent.

* Tell me truly, Sylvie. Put it into words. What would it
be ? What would you hear ? '

WINTERGREEN 291

* Just what you do, I suppose/ said Sylvie, slowly. ' But I
dofCt hear it on my side. My part doesn't seem to chord.'

'Your part just pauses. There are no notes written just
here, in your score. Your part is to wait. Think, and see if
it isn't. The Dakie Thaynes are going out West again. Mr.
Thayne knows about lands, and such things. He would do
something, and let you know. A real business man would
make this Saftleigh fellow afraid.'

The Thajmes — Mrs. Dakie Thayne is our dear little old
friend Ruth Holabird, you know — had been visiting in Boston ;
staying partly here, and partly at Mrs. Frank Schermau's.
At Asenath's they were real * comfort-friends ; ' Asenath had
the faculty of gathering only such about her. She felt no
necessity, with them, for grand, late dinners, or any show ;
there was no trouble or complication in her household because
of them. Ruth insisted upon the care of her own room ; it
was like the ' co-operative times ' at Westover. Mrs. Scherman
said it was wonderful, when your links were with the light
people, how simple you could make your art of living ; you
could, actually be * quite Holabird-y,' even in Boston ! But
this digresses.

* I shall speak to Mr. Thayne about it,' said Desire. * And
now, dear, if you could just mark these two towels this
morning ? '

Sylvie sat marking the towels, and Desire paissed to and
fro, gathering things which were to go to Neighbour Street in
the afternoon.

*Do you see,' she said, stopping behind Sylvie a while
after, and putting her fingers upon her hair with a caressing
little touch, — *the sun has got round from the east to the
south. It shines into this window now. And you have been
keeping quiet, just doing your own little work of the moment.
The world is all alive, and changing. Things are working —
away up in the heavens — ^for us alL When people don't know
which way to turn, it is very often good not to turn at all ; if
they are driven^ they do know. \Vait till you are driven, or
see ; you will be shown, one way or the other. It is almost
always when things are all blocked up and impossible, that a
happening comes. It has to. A dead block can't last, any

292 THE OTHER GIRLS

njore than a vacuum. If you are sure you are looking and
ready, that is all you need. God is turning the world round
all the time.'

Desire did not say one word about the ninety-eight dollars
which lay in one of the locked drawers of her writing desk, in
precisely the shape in which every two or three weeks she had
let Sylvie put the money into her hands. There would be a
right time for that. She would force nothing. Sylvie would
come near enough, yet, for ,that perfect understanding in
which those bits of stamped paper would cease to be terrible
between their hands, either way.

CHAPTER XXX.

NEIGHBOUR STREET AND GRAVES ALLEY.

Rodney SHERRETT^had heard of the Argenters' losses by the
fire ; what would have been the good of his correspondence
with Aunt Euphrasia, and how would she have expected to
keep him pacified up in Arlesbury, if he could not get, regu-
Jarly, all she knew ? Of course he ferreted out of her, like-
wise, the rest of the business, as fast as she heard it.

* It's really a dreadful thing to be so confided in, all roimd ! *
she said to Desire Ledwith, when they had been talking one
morning. * People don't know half the ways in which every-
thing that gets poured into my mind concerns everything else*
As an intelligent human being, to say nothing of sympathies,.
I catCt act as if they weren't there. I feel like a kind of Judas
with a bag of secrets to keep, and playing the traitor with
every one of them ! '

* What a nice world it would be if there were only plenty
more just such Judases to carry the bags ! ' Desire answered,
buttoning on her Astrachan collar, and picking up her muff ta

go-
Whereupon five minutes after, the amiable traitress was

seated at her writing-desk replying to Rodney's last imperative

enquiry, and telling him, under protest, as something he could

NEIGHBOUR STREET AND GRAVES ALLEY 2<)s

not possibly help, or have to do with, the further misfortune of
Sylvie and her mother.

Mr. Dakie Thayne had honestly expressed his conviction to
Miss Kirkbright and Desire Ledwith, that the Donnowhair
business was an irresponsible, loose speculation. He said that
he had heard of this Farron Saftleigh and his schemes ; that he
might frighten him into some sort of small restitution, and that
he would look into the title of the lands for Mrs. Argenter ;
but that the value of these fell, of course, with the railroad
shares ; and the railroad was, at present, at any rate, mere
moonshine ; stopped short, probably, in the woods somewhere,
waiting for the country to be settled up beyond Latterend.

* Am I bound by my promise against such a time as this ? '
Rodney wrote back to Aunt Euphrasia. * Can't I let Sylvie
know, at least, that I am working for her, and that if she will
say so, I will be her mother's son ? I could get a little house
here in Arlesbury for a hundred dollars a year. I am earning
fifteen hundred now, and I shall sate my this year's thousand.
I shall not need any larger putting into business. I don't care
for it. I shall work my way up here. I believe I am better
off with an income that I can clearly see through, than with
one which sits loose enough around my imagination to let me
take notions. Can't you stretch your discretionary power ?
Don't you see my father couldn't but consent ?'

The motive had touched Rodney Sherrett's love and manU-
ness, just as this fine manceuvrer, — pulling wires whose ends
laid hold of character, not circumstance, — ^believed and meant.
It had only added to the strength and loyalty of his purpose.
She had looked deeper than a mere word-faithfulness in
communicating to him what another might have deemed it
wiser not to let him know. She thought he had a right to the
motives that were made for him. But when a month would
take this question of his abroad and bring back an answer,
Miss Euphrasia would not force beyond the letter any inter-
pretation of provisional authority which her brother-in-law had
deputed. She would only draw herself closer to Sylvie in all
possible confidence and friendliness. She would only move
her to acquiescence yet a little longer in what her friends
offered and urged. She represented to her that they must at
least wait to hear from Mr. Thayne ; there might be some-

294 ^HE OTHER GIRLS

thing coming from the West ; and it would be cruel to hurry
her mother into a life which could not but afflict her, imtil an
absc^ute necessity should be upon them.

She bade Rodney be patient yet a few weeks more, and to
leave it to her to write to his father. She did write : but she
also put Rodney's letter in.

* Things which are might as well, and more truly, be taken
into account, and put in their proper tense,' she urged to Mr.
Sherrett. * There is a bond between these two lives which
neither you nor I have the making or the timing of. It will
assert itself ; it will modify everything. This is just what the
Lord has given Rodney to do. It is not your plan, or authority,
but this in his heart, which has set him to work, and made
him save his money. Why not let them begin to live the life
while it is yet alive ? It wears by waiting ; it cannot help it.
You must not expect a miracle of your boy; you must take the
motive while it is fresh, and let it work in God's way. The
power is there ; but you must let the wheels be put in gear.
Simply, I advise you to permit the engagement, and the mar-
riage. If you do not, I think you will rob them of a part
of their real history which they have a right to. Marriage
is a making of life together ; not a taking of it after it is
made.'

It was February when this letter was sent out.

One day in the middle of the month. Desire Ledwith, Hazel
Ripwinkley, and Sylvie had business with Luclarion in Neigh-
bour Street. There was work to carry ; a little basket of
things for the fine laundry ; some bakery orders to give.
There was always Luclarion herself to see. Just now, besides
and especially, they were all interested in Ray Ingraham's
rooms that were preparing in the next house to the Neigh-
bours ; a house which Mr. Geoffrey and others had bought,
enlarged, and built up ; fitting it in comfortable suites for
housekeeping, at rents of from twenty-five to thirty dollars a
month, each. They were as complete and substantial in all
their appointments as apartments as the Commonwealth or
the Berkeley ; there was only no magnificence, and there was
no 'locality' to pay for. The locality was to be ministered to
and redeemed, by the very presence of this growth of pure
and pleasant and honourable living in its midst. For the

NEIGHBOUR STREET AND GRAVES ALLEY 295

most part^ those who took up an abiding here had enough of
the generous human sense in them to account it a satisfaction
so to contribute themselves ; for the rest, there was a sprink-
ling of decent people, who were glad to get good homes cheap
in the heart of a dear city ; and the public, Christian intent
of the movement sheltered and countenanced them with its
chivalrous respectability.

Frank Sunderline and Ray were to live here for a year ;
they were to be married the first of March. Frank had said
that Ray would have to manage him and the Bakery too, and
Ray was prepared to fulfil both obligations.

She was going to carry out here, with Luclarion Grapp, her
idea of public supply for the chief staple of food. They were
going to try a manufacture of breadstuffs and cakestuffs,
on real home principles, by real domestic receipts. They
were going to have sale shops in different quarters, — at the
South and West ends. Already their laundry sustained itself
by doing excellent work at moderate prices ; why should they
not, in still another way, meet and play into the movement of
the time for simplifying it, and making household routine
more independent ?

^ Why shouldn't there be,' Ray said, with appetising em-
phasis, ^ a place to buy cup cake, and composition cake, and
sponge cake, tender and rich, made with eggs instead of am-
monia? Why shouldn't there be pies with sweet butter-crust
crisp and good like mother's, and nice wholesome little pud-
dings? Everybody knew that since the war, when the confec-
tioners began to economise in their materials and double their
prices at the same time, there was nothing fit to buy and call
cake in the city. Why shouldn't somebody begin again honest?
And here, where they didn't count upon outrageous profits,
why couldn't it be as well as not ? When there was a good
thing to be had in one place, other places would have to keep
up. It would make a difference everywhere, sooner or later.'

* And all these girls to be learning a business that they could
set up anywhere ! ' said Hazel Ripwinkley. * Everybody eats !
Just a new thing, if if s only new trash, sells for a while ; and
these new, old-fashioned, grandmother's cupboard things, —
why, people would just swarm after them. Cooks never
knew how, and ladies didn't have time. Don't forget.

296 THE OTHER GIRLS

Luclarion, the bright yellow ginger pound-cake that we used
to have up at Homesworth! Everything was so good at
Homesworth — the place was named out of comforts ! Why
don't you call it the Homesworth Bakery ? That would be
double-an-tender, — eh, Lukey ? '

Marion Kent made a beautiful silk quilt for Ray Ingraham,
out of her sea-green and buff dresses, and had given it to her
for a>vedding-present. For the one only time as she did so,
she spoke her heart out upon that which they had both per-
fectly understood, but had never alluded to.

* You know, Ray, just as I do, what might have been ; and
I want you to know that Tm contented, and there isn't a
grudge in my heart. You and Frank have both been too
much to me for that. I can see how it was, though. It was
a hand's turn once. But I went my way and you kept quietly
on. It was the real woman, not the sham one, that he wanted
for a wife. It doesn't trouble me now ; it's all right ; and
when it might have troubled me, it didn't add a straw's
weight. It fell right off from me. You can't suffer all through
with more than one thing ; when you were engaged, I had
my load to bear. I knew I had forfeited everything ; what
difference did one part make more than another ? It was
ivhat I had let go out of the worlds Ray, that made the whole
world a prison and a punishment. I couldn't have taken a
happiness, if it had come to me. All I wanted was work and
forgiveness.'

* Dear Marion, how certainly you must know you are for-
given, by the spirit that is in you ! And for happiness, dear,
there is a Forever that is full of it ! I dotCt think it is any
one thing, — not even any, one marrying.'

So the two kissed each other, and went down into the other
house — Luclarion's.

That had been only a few days ago, and Ray had shown
the quilt, so rich and lustrous, and delicate with beautiful
shellwork stitchery, — to the young girls this afternoon.

She showed the quilt with loving pride and praise, but the
story of it she kept in her heart, among her prayers. Frank
Sunderline never knew more than the fair fabric and colour,
and the name of the giver, told him. Frank Sunderline

NEIGHBOUR STREET AND GRAVES ALLEY 297

scarcely knew so much as these two women did of the un-
analysed secrets of his own life.

Luclarion waited till all this was over, and Desire Ledwith
had come back from Ray Ingraham's rooms to hers, leaving
Hazel and Sylvie among the fascinations of new crockery and
bridal tin pans, before she said anything about a very sad and
important thing she had to tell her and consult about. She
. took her into her own little sitting-room to hear the story, and
then up-stairs, to see the woman of whom the story had to
be told.

*It was Mr. Tipps, the milkman, came to me yesterday
with it all,' said Luclarion. *He's a good soul, Tipps; as
clever as ever was. He was just in on his early rounds^
at four o'clock in the morning, — an awful blustering, cold,
night, night before last was, — and he was coming by Graves
Alley, when he heard a queer kind of crazy howling down
there out of sight. He wouldn't have minded it, I suppose,
for there's always drunken noise enough about in those places,
but it was a woman's voice, and a baby's crying was mixed up
with it. So he just flung his reins down over his horse's back,
and jumped off his waggon, and ran down. It was this girl, —
Mary Moxall her name is, and Mocks-all it ought to be, sure
enough, to finish up after that pure, blessed name so many of
these miserables have got christened with ; and she was
holding the child by the heels, head down, swinging it back and
for'ard, as you'd let a gold ring swing on a hair in a tumbler,
to try your fortune by, waiting till it would hit and ring.

* It was all but striking the brick walls each side, and she
was muttering and howUng like a young she-devil over it, her
eyes all crazy and wild, and her hair hangihg down her
shoulders. Tipps flew and grabbed the baby, and then she
turned and clawed him like a tiger-cat. But he's a* strong
man, and cool ; he held the child back with one hand, and
with the other he got hold of one of her wrists and gave it a
grip, — ^just twist enough to make the other hand come after
his ; and then he caught them both. She spit and kicked ; it
was all she could do ; she was just a mad thing. She lost
her balance, of course, and went down ; he put his foot on her
chest, just enough to show her he could master her ; and
then she went from howling to crying. " Finish me, and I

298 THE OTHER GIRLS

wouldn't care ! " she said ; and then lay still, all in a heap,
moaning. " I won't hurt ye/' says Tipps. " I never hurt a
woman yet, soul nor body. What was ye goin' to do with
this 'ere little baby ? " "I was goin' to send it out of the hell
it's bom into," she said, with an awfiil hate in the soimd of
her voice. " Goin' to kill it ! You wouldn't ha' done that ? **
" Yes, I would. I'd 'a done it, if I was hanged for it the next
minute. Isn't it my business that ever it was here ? ''

' " Now look here ! " says Tipps. "You're calmed down a
little. If you'll stay calm, and come with me, I'll take you to
a safe place. If you don't. 111 call a policeman, and you'll go
to the lock-up. Whichll ye have ? " " You've got me," she
said, in a kind of a sulk. " I s'pose youll do what you like
with me. That's the way of it. Anybody can be as bad and
as miserable as they please, but they won't be let out of it.
It's hell, I tell you, — this very world. And folks don't know
they've got there."

^ Tipps says there's hopes of her from just that word bad.
She wouldn't have put that in, otherways. Well, he brought
her here, and the baby. And they're both up-stairs. She's as
weak as water, now the drink is out of her. But it wasn't all
drink. The desperation is in her eyes, though it's give way,
and helpless. And what to do with 'em next, I dor^t know.'

* I do,' said Desire, with her eyes full. ^ She must be com-
forted up. And then, Mr. Vireo must know, the first thing.
Afterwards, he will see.'

Luclarion took Desire up-stairs.

The girl was lying, in a clean night-dress, in a clean, white
bed. Her hair, dark and beautiful, was combed and braided
away from her face, and lay back, in two long, heavy plaits,
across the pillow. Her features were sharp, but delicate, and
were meant to have been pretty. But her eyes ! Out of them
a suffering demon seemed to look, with a still, hopeless rage.

Desire came up to the bedside.

^ What do you want?' the girl said, slowly, with a deep,
hard, resentful scorn in her voice. * Have you come to see
what it is all like ? Do you want to feel how clean you are
beside me ? That's a part of it ; the way they torment'

It was like the cry of the devil out of the man against the
Son of God.

NEIGHBOUR STREET AND GRAVES ALLEY 299

' No/ said Desire, just as slowly, in her turn. ' I can only-
feel the cleanness in you that is making you suffer against
the sin. The badness doesn't belong to you. Let it go, and
begin again.'

It was the word of the Lord, — 'Hold thy peace, and come
out of him.' Desire Ledwith spoke as she was that minute
moved of the Spirit. The touch of power went down through
all the misery and badness, to the woman's soul, that knew
itself to be just clean enough for agony. She turned her eyes,
with the fiery gloom in them, away, pressing her forehead down
against the pillow.

' God sees it better than I do,' said Desire, gentiy.

An arm flung itself out from under the bedclothes, thrusting
them off. The head rolled itself over, with the face away.

'God! PfP

So far from Him ; and yet so close, in the awful hold of
his unrelaxing love !

Desire kept silence; she could not force upon her the
thought, the Name : the Name for whose hallowing to pray,
is to pray for the holiness in ourselves that alone can make it
tender.

* What do you know about God ?' the voice asked defiantly,
the face still turned away.

' I know that his Living Spirit touches your thought and
mine, this moment, and moves them to each other. As you
and I are alive. He is alive beside us and between us. Your
pain is his pain for you. You feel it just where you are joined
to Him; in the quick of your soul. If it were not for that,
you would be dead ; you could not feel at alL'

Was this the Desire Ledwith of the old time, with deep
thoughts but half understood, and shrinking always from any
recognising word ? She shrunk now, just as much, from any
needless expression of herself; from any parade or talking
over of sacred perception and experience ; but the real life
was all the stronger in her ; all the surer to use her when its
hoiu: came. She had escaped out of all shams and contra-
dictions. Unconsent to the divine impulse comes of incon-
gruity. There was no incongruity now, to shame or to deter ;
no separate or double consciousness to stand apart in her soul,
rebuked or repugnant. She gave herself quietly, simply, freely.

300 THE OTHER GIRLS

to God's thought for this other child of his ;' the Thought that
she knew was touching and stirring her own.

* I shall send somebody to you who can tell you more than
I can, Mary/ she said, presently. ' You will find there is heart
and help in the world that can only be God's own. Believe
in that,. and you will come to believe in Him. You have seen
only the wrong, bad side, I am afraid. The under side ; the
side turned down towards ' —

* Hell-fire,' said Mary Moxall, filling Desire's hesitation with
an utterance of hard, unrecking distinctness.

But Desire Ledwith knew that the hard unreckingness was
only the reflex of a tenderness quick, not dead, which the
I-ord would not let go of to perish.

Sylvie and Hazel came in below, and she left Mary Moxall,
and went down to them. The three took leave, for it was
after five o'clock.

When they got out from the street-car at Borden Square,
Desire left them, to go round by Savin Street, and see Mr.
Vireo. Hazel went home ; Mrs. Ripwinkley expected her to-
night; Miss Craydocke and some of the Beehive people were
to come to tea. Sylvie hastened on to Greenley Street,
anxious to return to her mother. She had rarely left her,
lately, so long as this.

How would it be when they had heard from Mr. Thayne
what she felt sure they must hear, — when they had to leave
Greenley Street, and go into that cheap little lodging-room,
and she had to stay away. from her mother all day long ?

She remembered the time when she had thought it would
be nice to have a 'few things ;' nice to earn her own living;
to be one of the * Other Girls.'

CHAPTER XXXI.

CHOSEN: AND CALLED.

Desire Ledwith found nobody at home at Mr. Vireo's.
The maid-servant said that she could not tell when they would

-CHOSEN: AND CALLED 301

•

return. Mrs.Vireowas at her mother's, and she believed
they would not come back to tea.

Desire knew that it was one of the minister's chapel nights.
She went away, up Savin Street, disappointed ; wishing that
she could have sent instant help to Mary Moxall, who, she
thought, could not withstand the. evangel of Hilary. Vireo's
presence. It is so sure that nothing so instantly brings the
heavenly power to bear upon a soul as contact with a humanity
in which it already abides and rules. She wanted this girl to
touch the hem of a garment of earthly living, with which it
had clothed itself to do a work in the world. For the Christ
still finds and puts such garments on to walk the earth ; the
seamless robes of undivided consecration to Himself.

As Desire crossed to Borden Street, and went on up the
hill, there came suddenly to her mind recollection of the
Sunday noon, years since, when she had walked over that
same sidewalk with Kenneth Kincaid ; when he had urged
her to take up Mission work, and she had answered him with
he^r girlish bluffness, that * she thought he did not approve of
brokering business ; it was all there, why should they not take
it for themselves? Why should she set up to go between?'
She thought how she had learned, since, the beautiful links of
endless ministry ; the prismatic law of mediation, — that there
is no tint or shade of spiritual being, no angle at which any
soul catches the Divine beam, that does not join and melt into
the A^xt above and the next below ; that the farther apart in
the spectrum of humanity the red of passion and the violet of
peace, the more place and need for every subdivided ray, to
help translate the whole story of the pure, whole whiteness.

She remembered what she had said another time about
'seeing blue, and living red.' She was thinking out by
the type the mystery of difference, — the broken refractions
that God lets His Spirit fall into, — when, looking up as she
was about to pass some person, she met the face of Chris-
topher Kirkbright

He had not been at home of late ; he had been busy up at
Brickfield Farms.

For nearly four months past. Cone Hill and the Clay Pits
had been his by purchase and legal transfer. He had lost no
time in making his offer to his brother-in-law. Ten words by

302 THE OTHER GIRLS

the Atlantic cable had done it, and the instructions had come
back by the first mail steamer. Repairing and building had
at once begun ; an odd, rambling wing, thrown out eastward,
slanting off at a wholly unarchitectural angle from the main
house, and climbing the terraced rock where it found best
space and foothold, already made the quaint structure look
more like a great two-story Chinese puzzle than ever, and
covered in space for an ample, airy, sunny, work-saloon above
a range of smaller rooms calculated for individual and home
occupancy.

But the details of the plan at Brickfields would make a long
story within a story ; we may have further glimpses of it, on
beyond ; we must not leave our friends now, standing in the
street.

Mr. Kirkbright held out his hand to Desire, as he stopped
to speak with her.

^ I am going down to Vireo's,' he said. ' I have come to a
place in my work wljiere I want him.'

* So have I,' said Desire. ' But he is not at home. I was
going next to Miss Euphrasia.'

'And you and I are sent to stop each other. My sister is
away, at Milton, for two days.'

Desire turned round. ' Then I must go home again,' she
said.

Mr. Kirkbright moved on, down the hill beside her.

' Can I do anything for you ? ' he enquired.

' Yes,' returned Desire, pausing, and looking gravely up at
him. * If you could go down to Luclarion Grapp's, — ^the
Neighbours, you know, — and carry some kind of a promise tb
a poor thing who has just been brought there, and who thinks
there is no promise in the world ; a woman who tried to kill
her baby to get him out of it, and who says that the world is
hell, and people don't know they've got into it Go and tell
her some of the things you told me, that morning up at
Brickfields.'

' You have been to her ? What have you told her yourself,
Iready?'

' I told her that it was not all badness when one coiild feel
the misery of the badness. That her pain at it was God's
pain for her. That if He had done with her, she would be
dead.'

CHOSEN: AND CALLED 303

* Would she believe you ? Did she seem to begin to
believe?'

' I do not think she believes anything. She can't, until the
things to believe in come to hef. Mr. Vireo — or you — would
make her see. I told her I would send somebody who had
more for her than I.'

' You have told her the first message, — that the kingdom is
at hand. The Christ-errand must be done next. The full
errand of help. That was what was sent to the world, after
the voice had cried in the wilderness. It isn't Mr. Vireo or I,
— but the helping hand ; the righting of condition ; the giving
of the new chance. We must not leave all that to death and
the angels. Miss Desire, this woman must go to our moun-
tain-refuge ; to our sanatorium of souls. I have a good deal
to tell you about that.'

They had walked on again, as they talked ; they had come
to the foot of Borden Street They must now turn two diffe-
rent ways.

They were standing a moment at the comer, as Mr. Kirk-
bright spoke. When he said ^ our refuge, — our sanatorium,'
— Desire blushed again as she had blushed at Brickfields.

She was provoked at herself : why need personal pronouns
come in at all ? Why, if they did, need they remind her of
herself and him, instead of merely the thoughts that they had
had together, the intent of which was high above them both ?
Why need she be pleased and shy in her selfhood, — ashamed
lest he should detect the thought of pleasure in her at his
sharing with her his grand purpose, recognising in her the
echo of his inspiration.? What made it so different that
Christopher Kirkbright should discover and acknowledge such

a sympathy between them, from her meeting it, as she had
long done, in Miss Euphrasia ? •

She would not let it be different ; she would not be such a

fool.
It was twilight, and her little.lace veil was down. She took

courage behind it, and in her respjve, — ^for she knew that to

be very determined would make- her pale, not red ; and the

next time she would be on her guard, and very determined.
She gave him the hand he held out his own for, and bade

him good evening, with her head lifted just imperceptibly

304 THE OTHER GIRLS

higher than was its wont, and her face turned full towards him.
Her eyes met his with an honest calmness ; she had sum-
moned herself back.

He saw strength and earnestness ; a flush of feeling ; the
face of a woman made to look nobleness and enthusiasm into
the soul of a man.

She sat in the library that evening at nine o'clock.

She had drawn up her large chair to the open fire ; her feet
were /esting on the low fender ; her eyes were watching
shapes in the coals.

Mrs. Lewes's ' Middlemarch ' lay on her lap : she had just
begfun to read it Her hands, crossed upon each other, had
fallen upon the page ; she had found something of herselif in
those first chapters. Something that reminded of her old
longings and hindrances ; of the shallowness and half-living
that had been about her, and the chafe of her discontent in it

She did not wonder that Dorothea was going to marry Mr.
Casaubon. Into some dream-trap just such as that she might
have fallen, had a Mr. Casaubon come in her way.

Instead, had come pain and mistake ; a keen self-searching ;
a learning to bear with all her might, to work, and to wait

She had not been waiting for any making good in God's
Providence of that special happiness which had passed her
by. If she had, she would not have been doing the sort of
work she had taken into her hands. When we wait for one
partictdar hope, and will not be satisfied with any other, the
whole force of ourselves bends towards it ; we dictate to life,
and wrest its tendencies at every turn.

The thing comes. Ask, — ^with the real might of whatever
asking there is in you, — and it shall be given yoiL But when
you have got it, it may not be the thing you thought it would
be. Whosoever will have his life shall lose it

No; Desire Ledwith had rather turned away from all
special hope^ thinking it was over for her. But she came to
beheve that all the good in God's long years was not over ;
that she had not been hindered from one thing, save to be
kept for some other that He saw better. She was willing to
wait for his better, — ^his best When she paused to look at
her life objectively, she rejoiced in it as die one thread — a

CHOSEN: AND CALLED 305

thread of changing colours — in God's manifold work, that He
was letting her follow alone with Him, and showing her the
secret beauty of. Up and down, in and out, backward and
forward, she wrought it after his pattern, and discerned con-
tinually where it fell into combinations that she had never
planned, — made surprises for her of effects that were not her
own. There is much ridicule of mere tapestry and broidery
work, as a business for women's fingers ; but I think the
secret, uninterpreted charm of it, to the silliest sorters of
colours and counters of stitches, is beyond the fact, as the
beauty of children's plays is the parable they cannot help
having in them. Patient and careful doing, after a law and
rule, — and the gradual apparition of result, foreseen by the
deviser of the law and rule ; it is life measured out upon a
canvas. Who knows how, — in this spiritual Kindergarten fcf
a world, — the rudiments of all small human devices were set
in human faculty and aptness for its own object-teaching
toward a perfect heavenly enlightenment ?

Desire was thinking to-night, how impossible it is, as the
pattern of life grows, to help seeing a little of the shapes it
may be taking ; to refrain from a looking forward that be-
comes eager with a hint of possible unfolding.

Once, a while ago, she had thought that she discerned a
green beauty springing out from the dull, half-filled back-
ground; tender leaves forming about a bare and awkward
shoot ; but suddenly there were no more stitches in that
direction that she could set ; the leaves stopped short in half-
developed curves that never were completed. The pattern set
before her — given but one bit at a time, as life patterns are,
like part etchings of a picture in which you know not how the
spaces are to be filled up and related — changed ; the place,
and the tint of the thread, changed also ; she had to work on
in a new part, and in a different way. She could not discover
then, that these abortive leaves were the slender claspings of
a calix, in whose midst might sometime fit the rose-bloom of
a wonderful joy. Was she discovering it now ? For browns
and grays, — generous and strong,' tender and restful, — ^was a
flush of blossom hues that she had not looked for, coming to
be woven in ? Was the empty calyx showing the first shadowy
petal shapes of a most perfect flower }

3o6 THE OTHER GIRLS

It might be the flower of a gracious friendship only ; a
joining of hands in work for the kingdom building ; she did
not let herself go farther than this. But it was a friendship
across which there lay no bar ; and somehow, while she put
from herself the thought that it might ever be so promised to
her as to be hers of all the world and to the world's exclu-
sion, — ^while she resented in herself that foolish girl's blush
and resolved that it should never come again, — she sat here
to-night, thinking how grand and perfect a thing for a woman
a grand man's friendship is; how it is different from any,
the most pure and sweet of woman-tenderness ; how the
crossing of her path with such a path as Christopher Kirk-
bright's, if it were only once a day, or once a week, or once a
month, would be a thing to reckon joy and courage from ; to
live on from, as she lived on from her prayers.

An hour had come in her life which gathered about her
realities of heaven, whether the earthly correspondence should
concur, or no. A noble influence which had met and moved
her, seemed to come and abide about her, — a thought-
presence.

. And a thought-presence was precisely what it was. A
thousand circumstances may stretch that hyphen which at
once links and separates the sign -syllables of the wonderful
fact ; an impossibility of physical conditions maybe between :
but the fact subsists — and in rare moments we know it — when
that which belongs to us comes invisibly and takes us to
itself; when we feel the footsteps afar off which may or may
not be feet of the flesh turned towards us. Yet even this
conjunction does happen, now and again ; the will — the
blessed purpose — is accomplished at once on eaith and in
heaven.

When many minutes after the city bells had ceased to sound
for nine o'clock, the bell of her own door rang with a clear,
strong stroke. Desire Ledwith thought instantly of Mr. Kirk-
bright with a singular recall, — that was less a change than a
transfer of the same perception, — from the inward to the
actual. She had no reason to suppose it, — no ordinary reason
why, — but she was suddenly persuaded that the friend who in
the last hour had stood spiritually beside her, stood now, in
reality, upon her door-stone.

CHOSEN: AND CALLED 307

She did not even wonder for what he could have come. She
did not move from her chair ; she did not lift her crossed
hands from off her open book. She did not break the external
conditions in which unseen forces had been acting. If she
had moved, — pushed back her chair, — put by her book, — it
would have begun to seem strange ; she would have been
back in a bond of circumstance, which would have embarrassed
her : she would have been receiving an evening call at an un-
usual hour. But to have the verity come in and fill the dream,
— this was not strange. And yet Christopher Kirkbright had
scarcely been in that house ten times before.

She heard him ask if Miss Ledwith were still below ; if he
might see her. She heard Frendely close the outer door, and
precede him towards the door of the library. He entered, arid
she lifted her eyes.

* Don't move,' he said quickly. ^ I have been seeing you
sitting like that all the evening. It is a reverie come true..
Only I have walked out of my end of it, and into yours
May I stay a little while ? '

Her face answered him in a very natural way. There was
a wonder in her eyes, and in the smile that crept over her
lips ; there were wonder and waiting in the silence which she
kept, answering in her face only, at the first, that peculiar
greeting. Perhaps any woman, who had had no dream, would
have found other response as difficult.

* I am going back to Brickfields to-morrow. I am more
eager than ever to get the home finished there, for those who
are waiting for its shelter. I have had a busy day, — a busy
evening ; it has not been a still reverie in which I have seen
you. In this last half hour I have been with Vireo. He has
found a woman for me who can be a directress of work ; can
manage the sewing-room. A good woman, too, who will
mother — not "matron" the girls. I have bought five ma-
chines. ^ They will make their own garments first ; then they
will work for pay, some hours each day, or a day or two
every week, — in turn. That money will be their own. The
rest of the time will be due to the commonwealth. There
will be a farm-kitchen, where they will cook — and learn to
cook well — for the farm hands ; they will wash and iron ;
they will take care of fruit and poultry. As they learn the

X 2

3o8 THE OTHER GIRLS

various employments, they will take their place as teachers
to new-comers ; we shall keep them busy, and shall make a
life around them, that will be worth their labouring for ; as
God makes all the beauty of the world for us to live in, in
compensation for the little that He leaves it needful for us to
do. There is where I think our privilege comes in, after the
similitude of His ; to supplement broadly that which shall
not hinder honest and conditional exertion. I have been
longing to tell you about it ; I have had a vision of you in
the midst of my work and talk ; I have had a feeling of you
this evening, waiting just so and there ; I had to come. I
went to see your Mary Moxall, Miss Desire.'

* In the midst of all you had to do V

* Was it not a part ? "AH in the day's work" is a good proverb.'

* What did you say to her ? '

' I asked her if she would come up into the country with
my sister, to a home among great, still, beautiful hills, and
take care of her baby, and some flowers.'
' It was like asking her to come home — to God ! '
*Yes, — I think it was asking her God's way. How can
we, standing among all the helps and harmonies of our
lives, ask them to come straight up to Him, — His invisible,
unapproachable Self, — out of the terrible darkness and chaos
of theirs ? There are no steps.'

* Tell me more about the steps you have been making— in
the hiUs. You said " flowers." '

* Yes ; there will be a conservatory. I must have them all
the year through ; the short summer gardening would not be
ministry enough. Beyond the Chapel Rock runs back a
large new wing, with sewing and living rooms ; they only
wait good weather for finishing. A dozen women can live
and work there. As they grow fit and willing, and numerous
enough to colonise off, there are little houses to be built that
they can move into, set up homes, earn their machines, and
at last, in cases where it proves safe and wise, their homes
themselves. I shall provide a dep6t for their needlework in
the city j and as the village grows it will create a little de-
mand of its own. Mr. Thayne is going to build the cottages ;
and he and I have contracted for the seven miles of railroad
to Tillington, as a private enterprise. The brick-making is

CHOSEN: AND CALLED 309

to begin at once ; we shall do something for the building of
the new fire-proof Boston. Your thought is growing into a
fact, Miss Desire ; and I think I have not forgotten any par-
ticular of it. Now, I have come back to you for more, — a
great deal more, if I can get it. First, a name. We can't
call it a City of Refuge, beautiful as such a city is — to be.
Neither will 1 call it a Home, or an Asylum. The first thing
Mary Moxall said to me was, — " I won't go to no Refuges
nor Sile'ums. I don't want to be raked up, mud an' all, into
a heap that everybody knows the name of. If the world was
big enough for me to begin again, — in a clean place ; but
there ain't no clean places ! " And then I asked her to come
home with me and my sister.'

*You mean, of course, a neighbourhood name for the
settlement, as it grows 1 '

* Exactly. "Brickfield Farms" belongs to the outlying
husbandry and homesteads. And " Clay Pits ! " It is out
of the pit and the miry clay that we want to bring them.
The suggestion of that is too much like Mary Moxall's
" heap that everybody knows the name of." '

* Why not call it " Hill-hope 1 " " The hills, whence cometh
our strength ;" " the mountain of the height of Israel where
the Lord will plant it, and the dry tree shall flourish ?" '

* Thank you,' said Mr. Kirkbright, heartily. * That is the
right word. It is named.'

Desire said nothing. She looked quietly into the fire with
a flush of deep pleasure on her face. Mr. Kirkbright re-
mamed silent also for a few minutes.

He looked at her as she sat there, in this room that was
hei* own ; that was filled with home-feeling and association
for her ; where a solemnly tender commission and oppor-
tunity had been given her, and had centred, and he almost
doubted whether the thing that was urging itself with him to
be asked for last and greatest of all, were right to ask ;
whether it existed for him, and a way could be made for it to
be given him. Yet the question was in him, strong and earnest ;
a question that had never been in him before to ask of any
woman. Why had it been put there if it might not at least
be spoken ? If there were not possibly, in this woman's
keeping, the ordained and perfect answer ?

310 THE OTHER GIRLS

While he sat and scrupled about it, it sprang, with an
impulse that he did not stop to scruple at, to his lips.

* I shall want to ask you questions every day, dear friend !
What are we to do about it ? '

Desire's eyes flashed up at him with a happiness in them
that waited not to weigh anything ; that he could not mistake.
The colour was bright upon her cheek ; her lips were soft and
tremulous. Then the eyes dropped gently away again ; she
answered nothing, — with words.

So far as he had spoken, she had answered.

* I want you there, by my side, to help me make a real
human home around which other homes may grow. There
ought to be a heart in it, and I cannot do it alone. Could you
— will you — come 1 Will you be to me the one woman of the
world, and out of your purity and strength help me to help
your sisters ? '

He had risen and walked the few steps across the distance
that was between them. He stopped before her^ and bending
toward her, held out his hands.

Desire stood up and laid hers in them.
• * It must be right. You have come for me. I cannot
possibly do otherwise than this.'

The deep, gracious, divine fact had asserted itself. A house
here, or a house there could not change or bind it. They
belonged together. There was a new love in the world, and
the world would have to arrange itself around it. Around it
and the Will that it was to be wedded to do.

They stood together, hands in hands. Christopher
Kirkbright leaned over and laid his lips against her fore-
head.

He whispered her name, set in . other syllables that were
only for him to say to her. I shall not say them over on this
page to you.

But there is a line in the blessed Scripture that we all know,
and God had fulfilled it to his heart.

Strangely — more strangely than any story can contrive —
are the happenings of life ptit side by side.

As they sat there a little longer in the quiet library, for-
getting the late evening hour, because it was morning all at
once to them ; forgetting Sylvie Argenter and her mother as

CHOSEN: AND CALLED 311

they were at just this moment in the next room ; only remem-
bering them among those whom this new relation and joining
of purpose must make surer and safer, not less carefully pro-
vided for in the changes that would occur, — the door of the
gray parlour opened ; a quick step fell along the passage, and
Sylvie unlatched the library door, and stood in the entrance
wide-eyed and pale.
' Desire ! Come ! '

* Sylvie ! What^ dear ? ' cried Desire, quickly, as she sprang
to meet her, her voice chording responsive to Sylvie's own,
catching in it the indescribable tone that tells so much
more than words. She did not need the further revelation
of her face to know that something deep and strange had
happened.

Sylvie said not a syllable more, but turned and hurried
back along the halL

Desire and Mr. Kirkbright followed her.

Mrs. Argenter was sitting in the deep comer of her broad,
low sofa, against the two large pillows.

* A minute ago,' said Sylvie, in the same changed voice,
that spoke out of a different world from the world of five
minutes before, * she was here ! She gave me her plate to
put away on the sideboard, and now^ — ^when I turned
round,' —

She was There,

The plate, with its bits of orange-rind, and an untasted
section of the fruit, stood upon the sideboard. The book she
had been reading fifteen minutes since lay, with her eye-
glasses inside it, at the page where she had stopped, upon the
couch ; her left hand had fallen, palm ;ipward, upon the
cushioned seat ; her life had gone instantly and without a
sign, out from her mortal body.

Mrs. Argenter had died of that disease which lets the spirit
free like the uncaging of a bird.

Hypertrophy of the heart. The gradual thickening and
hardening of those mysterious little gates of life and the walls
in which they are set ; the slower moving of them on their
palpitating hinges, till a moment comes when they open or
close for the last time, and in that pause ajar the soul flits out
like some curious, unwary thing, over a threshold it may pass
no more again, for ever.

312 THE OTHER GIRLS

CHAPTER XXXII.

EASTER LILIES.

Bright, soft days began to come ; days in which windows
stood open, and pots of plants were set out on the window-
sills ; days alternating as in the long New England spring
they always do, with bleak intervals of sharp winds and cold
sea-storms ; yet giving sweet anticipation tenderly, as a
mother gives beforehand that which she cannot find in her
heart to keep back till the birthday. That is the chaxm of
Nature with us; the motherliness in her that offsets, and
breaks through with loving impulse, her rule of rig^dness.
The year comes slowly to its growth, but she relaxes towards
it with a kind of pity, and says, ' There, take this I It isn't
time for it, but you needn't wait for everything till you're
grown up ! '

People feel happy, in advance of all their hopes and
realisations, on such days ; the ripeness of the year, in what-
ever good it may be making for them, touches them like the
soft air that blows up from the south. There is a new look on
men's and women's faces as you meet them in the street ; a
New Jerusalem sort of look ; the heavens are opened upon
them, and the divineness of sunshine flows in through sense
and spirit.

Sylvie Argeriter was very peaceful. She told Desire that
she never would be afraid again in all her life ; she knew
how things were measured, now. She was * so glad the
money had almost aU been spent while mother Hved, that not
a dollar that could buy her a comfort had been kept back.'

She was quite content to stay now; at least till Rachel
Froke should come ; she was busily helping Desire with her
wedding outfit. She was willing to receive from her the fair
wages of a seamstress, now that she could freely give her time,
and there was no one to accept and use an invalid's expensive
luxuries.

Desire would not have thought it needful that hundreds di

EASTER LILIES 313

extra yards of cambric and linen should be made up for her,
simply because she was going to be married, if it had not
been that her marriage was to be so especially a beginning of
new life and work, in which she did not wish to be crippled by
any present care for self.

* I see the sense of it now, so far as concerns quantity ; as
for quality, I wiU have nothing different from what I have
always had/

There was no trousseau to exhibit ; there were only trunks
full of good plenishing that would last for years.

Sylvie cut out, and parcelled. Elise Mokey, and one or
two other girls who had had only precarious employment and
Committee * rehef ' since the tire, had the stitching given them
to do ; and every tuck and hem was justly paia tor. When
the work came back from their hands, Sylvie finished and
marked delicately.

She had the sunny little room, now, over the gray parlour,
adjoining Desire's own. The white box lay upon a round,
damask-covered stand in the comer, under her mother's
picture painted in the graceful days of the gray silks and
llama laces ; and around this, drooping and trailing till they
touched the little table and veiled the box that held the
beautiful secret, — seeming to say, * We know it too, for we are
a part,' — wreathed the shining sprays of blossomy fern.

In these sunny days of early spring, Sylvie could not help
being happy. The snows were gone now, except in deep dark
places, out of the woods ; the ferns and vines and grasses
were alive and eager for a new summer's grace and fulness ;
their far-off presence made the air different, already, from the
airs of winter.

Yet Rodney Sherrett had kept silence.

All these weeks had gone by, and Miss Euphrasia had had
no answer from over the water. Of all the letters that went
safely into mail-bags, and of all the mail-bags that went as
they were bound, and of all the white messages that were
scattered like doves when those bags were opened, — some-
how — it can never be told how, — that particular little white
folded sheet got mishandled, mislaid, or missent, and failed of
its errand ; and at the time when Miss Euphrasia began to be
convinced that it must be so, there came a letter from Mr.

314 THE OTHER GIRLS

Sherrett to herself, written from London, where he had just
arrived after a visit to Berlin.

. * I have had no family news/ he wrote, * of later date than
January 20th. Trust all is well Shall sail from Liverpool
on the 9th.*

The date of that was March 20th.

The fourteenth of April, Easter Monday, was fixed for
Desire Ledwith's marriage.

Rachel Froke came back on the Friday previous. Desire
would have her in time, but not for any fatigues.

The gray parlour was all ready ; everything just as it had
been before she left it. The ivies had been carefully tended,
and the golden and brown canary was singing in his cage.
There was nothing to remind of the different life to which the
place had been lent, making its last hours restful and
pleasant, or of the death that had stepped so noiselessly and
solemnly in .

Desire had formally made over this house to her cousin and
co-heiress, Hazel Ripwinkley.

/ It must never be left waiting, a mere possible convenience^
for anybody,' she said. ' There must be a real life in it, as
long as we can order it so.'

The Ripwinkleys were to leave Aspen Street, and come
here with Hazel. Miss Craydocke, who never had half room
enough in Orchard Street, was to * spill over ' from the Bee-
hive into the Mile-hill house. *She knew just whom to put
there ; people who would take care and comfort. There
shouldn't be any hurt, and there would be lots of help.'

There was a widow with three daughters, to begin with ;
^ just as neat as a row of pins ; ' but who had had less and
less to be neat with for seven years past ; one of the daughters
had just got a situation as compositor, and another as a book-
keeper ; between them, they could earn twelve hundred dol-
lars a year. The jroungest had to stay at home and help her
mother do the work, that they might all keep together.
They could pay three hundred dollars for four rooms ; but
of course they could not get decent ones, in a decent neigh-
bourhood, for that. That was what Bee-hives were for;
houses that other people could do without.

EASTER LILIES 3^5

Hazel had her wish ; it came to pass that they also should
make a bee-hive.

' And whenever I marry/ Hazel said, * I hope he won't be
building a town of his own to take me to ; for I shall have to
bring him here. Pm the last of the line.'

' That will all be taken care of as the rest has been. There
isn't half as much left for us to manage as we think,' said
Desire, putting back into the desk the copy of Uncle Titus's
will, which they had been reading over together. * He knew
the executorship into which he gave it.'

Shall I stop here with them until the Easter- tide, and finish
telling you how it all was ?

There is a little bit about Bel Bree and Kate Sencerbox,
and the Schermans, which belongs somewhat earlier than
that, — in those few pleasant days when Msu-ch was beguiling
us to believe in the more engaging of his double moods, and
in the possibility of his behaving sweetly at the end, and
going out after aU like a lamb.

We can turn back afterwards for that. I think you would
like to hear aj^out the wedding.

Does it never occur to you that this 'going back and living
up ' in a story-book is a sign of a possibility that may be laid
by in the divine story-telling, for the things we have to hurry
away from, and miss of, now ? It does to me. I fenow that
That can manage at }east as well as miAe can.

Christopher Kirkbright and Desire Led with were married
in the library, where they had betrothed themselves ; where
Desire had felt all the sacredness of her life laid upon her ;
where she took up now another trust, that was only an out-
growth' and expansion of the first, and for which she laid
down nothing of its spirit and intent.

Mrs. Ledwith and the sisters — Mrs. Megilp and Glossy —
were there, of course.

Mrs. Megilp had said over to herself little imaginary
speeches about the homestead and old associations, and
* Daisy's great love and reverence for all that touched the
memory of her uncle, to whom she certainly owed everything;'
about tie journey to New York, and the few days they had to
give there to Mr. Oldwa/s life-long friend and Desire's

3i6 THE OTHER GIRLS

adviser^ Mr. Marmaduke Wharne {^ Sir Marmaduke he would
be, everybody knew, if he had chosen to claim the English
title that belonged to him \ — ^who was too infirm to come on
to the wedding ; and the necessity there was for them to go
as fast as possible to their estate in the country, — Hill-hope,
— where Mr. Kirkbright was building ' mills, and a village,
and a perfect castle of a house, and a private railroad, and
heaven knows what,' — all this to account, indirectly, for the
quiet little ordinary ceremony, which of course would other-
wise have been at the Church of the Holy Commandments ;
or, at least, up-stairs in the long, stately old drawing-room
which was hardly ever used.

But none of the people were there to whom any such little
speeches had to be made ; nobody who needed any ac-
counting to for its oddity was present at Desire Ledwith's
wedding.

Mr. Vireo officiated ; there was something in his method
and manner which Mrs. Megilp decidedly objected to.

It was * everyday,' she thought. * It didn't give you a feel-
ing of sanctity. It was just as if he was used to the Almighty,
and didn't mind ! It seemed as if he were just mentioning
things, in a quiet way, to somebody who was right at his
elbow. For her part, she liked a little lifting up.'

Hazel Ripwinkley heard her, and told Sylvie and Diana
that * that came of having all your ideas of home in the
seventh story ; of course you wanted an elevator to go up in.'

Desire Ledwith looked what she was, to-day : a grand, pure
woman ; a fit woman to stand up beside a man like Chris-
topher Kirkbright, in fair white garments, and say the words
that made her his wife. There was a beautiful, sweet majesty
in her giving of herself. ,

She did not disdain rich robes to-day, — she would give her-
self at her very best, with all generous and gracious outward
sign.

She wore a dress of heavy silk, long-trained ; the cream-
white folds, unspoiled by any frippery of lace, took, as they
dropped around her, the shade and convolutions of a lily.
Upon her bosom, and fastening her veil, were deep green
leaves that gave the contrast against which a lily rests itself.
Around her throat were links of frosted silver, from which

EASTER LILIES 317

hung a pure plain silver cross ; these were the gift of Hazel.
The veil, of point, and rarely beautiful, fell back from her
head, — lovely in its shape, and the simple wreathing of the
dark, soft hair, — ^like a drift of water-spray ; not covering or
misting her all over— only lending a touch of delicate suggestion
to the pure, cool, graceful, flower-like unity of her whole air
and apparel.

'Desire is beautiful!' said Desire Ripwinkley to h^r mother.
' She never stopped to be pretty /'/

White calla-lilies, with their tall stems and great shadowy
leaves, were in the Pompeiian vases on the mantel ; in the
India jars in the comers below ; in a large Oriental china
bowl that was set upon the closed desk on the library table,
wheeled back for the first time that anybody ^ere had seen it
so, against the wall.

Hazel had himg a lily- wreath upon the carved back of Uncle
Titus's chair, that no one might sit down in it, and placed it
in the recess at Desire's left hand, as she should stand up to
be married.

' Will you two take each other, to love and dwell together,
and to do God's work, as He shall show and help you, so long
as He keeps you both in this his world ? Will you, Desire
Ledwith, take Christopher Kirkbright to be your wedded hus-
band ; will you, Christopher Kirkbright, take Desire Ledwith
to be your wedded wife ; and do you thereto mutually make
your vows in the sight of God and before this company ?'

And they answered together, * We do.'

It was a promise for more than each other ; it was a life-
consecration. It was a gathering up and renewal of all that
had been holy in the resolves of either while they had lived
apart ; a joining of two souls in the Lord.

Hilary Vireo would not have dared to lead to perjury, by
such words, a conmion man and woman. It was enough for
such to ask if they would take, and keep to, each other.

Mrs. Megilp thought it was ' so jumbled ! ' * If it was her
daughter, she should not think she was half married.'

Mrs. Megilp put it more shrewdly than she had intended.

Desire and Christopher Kirkbright were very sure they had
not been * half married.' It was not the world's half marriage
that they had stood up there together for.

3i8 THE OTHER GIRLS

CHAPTER XXXIII.

KITCHEN CRAMBO.

Elise Mokey and Mary Pinfall came in one evening to see
Bel Bree and Kate.

There had been company to tea up-stairs, and the dishes
were more than usual, and the hour was a little later.

Kate was putting up the last of the cooking utensils, and
scalding down the big tin-dish pan and the sink. Bel was
up-atairs.

A table with a fresh brown linen cloth upon it, two white
plates . and cups, and two white napkins, stood out on the
kitchen floor under the gaslight. The dumb waiter came
rumbling down, with toast dish, tea and coffee pots, oyster
dish and muffin plate. Several slices of cream toast were left,
and there was a generous remnant of nicely browned scalloped
oysters. The half muffins, buttered hot, looked tender and
tempting stilL

Kate removed the dishes, sent up the waiter, and producing
some nice little stone-ware nappies hot from the hot closet,
transferred the food from the china to these, laying it neatly
together, and replaced them in the closet, to wait till Bel
should come. The tea and coffee she poured into small white
pitchers, also hot, in readiness, and set them on the range
comer. Then she washed the porcelain and silver in fresh-
drawn scalding water, wiped and set them safely on the long,
white sideboard. There they gleamed in the gas-light, and
lent their beauty to the brightness of the room, just as much
as they would have done in actual using.

'But what a lot of trouble !' said Elise Mokey.
' Half a dozen dishes ? ' returned Kate. ' Just three minutes*
work; and a warm, fresh supper to make it worth while.
Besides rubbing the silver once in four weeks, instead of every
Friday. A Yankee kitchen is a labour-saving institution, Mrs.
Scherman says.'

KITCHEN CRAMBO 319

Down came the waiter again, and down the stairs came Bel.
Kate brought two more dups, and plates and napkins.

' Now, girls, come and take some tea,' she said, drawing up
the chairs.

Mrs. Scherman was not strict about 'kitchen company.'
She gave the girls freely to understand that a friend or two
happening in now and^hen to see them, were as welcome to
their down-stairs table as her own happeners in were to hers.
' r know it is just the cosiness and the worth-while of home
and living,' she said. * And Fll trust the " now and then " of
it to you.'

The hint of reasonable limit, and the word of trust, were
better than lock and law.

' How nice this is ! * said Mary Pinfall, as Bel put a hot
muffin, mellow with sweet butter, upon her plate.

* If Matilda Meane only knew which side — and where —
bread was buttered I She's living on " relief" yet ; and she
buys cream-cakes for dinner, and pea-nuts for tea ! But, Bel,
what were you up-stairs for 1 I thought you was queen o' the
kitchen ! '

' Kate gives me her chance, sometimes. We change about,
to make things even. The best of it i§ in the up-stairs work ;
and waiting at table is the first-best chance of all. You see,
you " take it in at the pores," as the man says in the play.'

'Tea and oysters .'^' said Elise, with an exclamatory in-
terrogation.'

' You know better. See here, Elise. You don't half believe
in this experiment, though you appreciate the muffins. But it
isn't just loaves and fishes. There's a living in the world, and
a way to earn it, besides clothes, and bread and butter. If
you want it, you can choose your work nearest to where the
living is. And wherever else it may or mayn't be, it is in
houses and round tea-tables like this.'

' * Other people's living, — ^for you to look at and wait on,'
said Elise. ' I like to be independent.'

' They can't keep it back from us, if they wanted to,' said
Bel. 'And you caiit be independent ; there's no such thing
in the world. It's all give and take.*

' How about " other folks' dust," Kate ? Do you remember V
'There's only one place, I guess, after all,' said Kate, ' where
you can be shut up with nothing iDut your own dust ! '

320 THE OTHER GIRLS

' Sharper than ever, Kate Sencerbox ! I guess you do get
rubbed up 1* #

' Mr. Stalworth is there to-night/ said Bel. ' He tells as
good stories as he writes. And they've been talking about
Tyndall's Essays, and the spectroscope. Mrs. Scherman
asked questions that I don't believe she'd any particular need
of answers to, herself ; and she stopped me once when I was
going out of the room for something. I knew by her look that
she wanted me to hear.'

*If they want you to hear, why don't they ask you to sit
down and hear comfortably ?' said Elise Mokey, who had got
her social science — with a little warp in it — ^from Boffin's
Bower.

'Because it's my place to stand, at that time,' said Bel,
stoutly ; * and I shouldn't be comfortable out of my place. I
haven't earned a place like Mrs. Scherman's yet, or married a
man that has earned it for me. There are proper things for
everybody. It isn't always proper for Mrs. Scherman to sit
down herself; or for Mrs. Scherman to keep his hat on. It's
the knowing what's proper that sets people really up ; it never
puts them down ! '

' There's one thing,' said Kate Sencerbox. ' You might be
parlour people all your days, and not get into everybody's
parlour, either. There's an up-side and a down-side, all the
way through, from top to bottom. The very best chance, for
some people, if they only knew it, into some houses, would be
up through the kitchen.*

* Never mind,' said Bel, putting sugar into Mary Pinfall's
second cup of coffee. ' I've got the notion of those lines, Kate,
— I was going to tell you, — into my head at last, I do believe.
Red-hot iron makes a rainbow through a prism, like any light;
but iron-steam stops a stripe of the colour ; and every burn-
ing thing does the same way, — stops its own colour when it
shines through its own vapour ; there ! Let's hold on to that,
and well go all over it another time. There's a piece about it
in last month's Scribner.'

* What are you talking about ? ' said Elise Mokey.

' The way they've been finding out what the sun is made of.
By the black line's across the rainbow colours. It's a tele-
graph ; the/ve just learned to read it.'

* But what do you care ?'

KITCHEN CRAMBO 321

' I guess it's put there as much for me as anybody/ said
Bel. 'I don't think we should ever pick up such things,
though, among the basting threads at Fillmer & Bylles'.
They're lying round here, loose ; in books and talk, and every-
thing. They're going to have Crambo this evening, Kate.
After these dishes are washed, I mean to try my hand at it.
They were laughing about one Mrs. Scherman made last
time ; they couldn't quite remember it. I've got it. I picked
it up among the sweepings. I shall take it in to her by and
by.'

Bel went to her work-basket as she spoke, and lifting up
some calico pieces that lay upon it, drew from underneath
two or three folded bits of paper.

' This is it,' she said, selecting one, and coming back and
reading.

(Do you see, let me ask in a hurried parenthesis, — ^how
the tone of this household might easily have been a different
one, and pervaded differently its auxiliary department?
How, in that case, it might have been nothing better than a
surreptitious scrap of silk or velvet, that would have lain in
Bel Bree's work-basket, with a story about it of how, and for
what gaiety, it had been made ; a scrap out of a life that
these girls could only gossip and wonder about, — not partici-
pate, and with self-same htunan privilege and faculty delight
in ; and yet the only scrap that — " out of the sweepings " —
they could have picked up ? There is where, if you know it,
dear parlour people, the up-side, by just living, can so gra-
ciously and generously be always helping the down.)

Bel read : —

" ' What of that second great fire that was prophesied to .
come before Christmas ? " — " Peaches." '

* You've got to get that word into the answer, you see ; an
it hasn't the very least thing to do with it ! Now see : —

"A prophet, after the event,

No startling wisdom teaches ;
A seeond fire would scarce be sent
To gratify the morbid bent

That for fresh horror reaches.
But, friend, do tell me why you went

And mixed it up ^nUa. peaches I'*

324 THE OTHER GIRLS

cent action of this life. She was taking in truly, at every
pore. How long would it have been before, out of the hard
coarse limits in which her one line of labour and association
had first placed her, she would have come up into such an
atmosphere as was here, ready made for her to breathe and
abide in? To help make also; to stand at its practical
mainspring, and keep it possible that it should move on.

The talk, the ideas of the day, were in her ears ; the books,
the periodicals of the day were at hand, and free for her to
avail herself of. The very fun at Mrs. Scherman's tea-table
was the sort of fun that can only sparkle out of culture.
There was a grace that her aptness caught, and that was
making a lady of her.

' ril give in,' said Elise Mokey, that you're getting style;.
though I can't tell how it is either. It ain't in your caUco
dresses, nor the doing up of your hair.'

Perhaps it was a good de^ in the very simplifying of these
from the exaggerated imitations of the shop and street, as well
as in the tone of all the rest with which these inevitably fell
into harmony.

But I want to tell you about Bel's kitchen Crambo. I
want to show you how what is in a woman, in heart and
mind, springs up and shows itself, and may grow to whatever
is meant for it, out of the quietest background of homely use.

She brought out pencil and paper, and made Kate write
question slips and detached words.

* I feel just tingling to try,' she said. ' There's a kind of
dancing in my head, of things that have been there ever so
long. I believe I shall make a poem to-night. It's catching,,
when you're predisposed ; and if s partly the st)ring weather,
and the sap coming up. Put a name to it, Katie ! Almost
anything will set me off.'

Kate wrote, on half a dozen scraps ; then tossed them up^
and pushed them over for Bel to draw.

* How do you like the city in the spring?' was the question f
and the word, suggested by Kate's work at the moment, was^
— ' Hem.'

Bel put her elbows on the table, and her hands up against
her ears. Her eyes shone, as they rested intent upon the two
pencilled bits. The link between them suggested itself quickly

KITCHEN CRAMBO 325

and faintly ; she was grasping at an elusive something with
all the fine little quivering brain-tentacles that lay hold of
spiritual apprehension.

Just at that moment the parlour bell rang.

* ril go/ she said. * You keep to your sewing. It*s for
the nursery, I guess, and Til do my poem up there.'

She caught up pencil and paper, and the other fragment
also, — Mrs. Scherman's own rhyme about the * peaches.'
Mrs. Scherman met her at the parlour door.

* I'm sorry -to interrupt you,' she said ; * but the baby is
stirring. Could you, or Kate, go up ^nd try to hush her off
again .? If I go, she'll keep me.'

* I will,' said Bel. * Here is that " Crambo " you were
talking of at- tea, Mrs. Scherman. I kept it. Kate picked it
up with the scraps.'

* Oh, thank you ! Why, Bel, how your face shines ! '

Bel hurried off, for Baby Karen 'stirred' more emphatically
at this moment. Asenath went back into the parlour.

' Here is that rhyme of mine, Frank, that you were asking
for. 6el found it in the dust-pan. I believe she's writing
rhymes herself. She tries out every idea she picks up among
us. She had a pencil in her hand, and her face was brimful
of something. Mr. Stalworth, if / find anything in the dust-
pan, I shall turn it over to you. ' First and Last ' is bound to
act up to its title, and transpose itself freely, according to
Scripture.'

* " Fjrst, and Last " will receive, under either head, whatever
you will endorse, Mrs. Scherman, — and the last not least,' —
returned the benign and brilliant editor.

Bel had a> knack with a baby. She knew enough to under-
stand that small human beings have a good many feelings and
experiences precisely like those of large ones. She knew that if
she woke up in the night, she should not be likely to fall asleep
again if pulled up out of her bed into the cold ; nor if she
were very much patted and talked to. So she just took gently
hold of the upper edge of the small fine blanket in which
Baby Karen was wrapped, and by it drew her quietly over
upon her other side. The little limbs fell into a new place and
sensation of rest, as larger limbs do ; little Karen put off
waking up and crying for one delicious instant, as anybody

326 THE OTHER GIRLS

would ; and in that instant sleep laid hold of her again* 31ie
was safe, now, for another hour or two, at least.

Mrs. Scherman said she had really never had so little
trouble with a baby as with this one, who had nobody espe-
cially appointed to make out her own necessity by constant
^tending.'

Bel did not go down-stairs again. She could do better
here than with Kate sitting opposite, aware of aU her scratches
and poetical predicaments.

An hour went by. Bel was hardly equal yet to five-minute
Crambo ; and besides, she was doing her best ; trying to put
something clearly into syllables that said itself, imsyllabled, to
her. ,

She did not hear Mrs. Scherman when she came up the
stairs. She had just read over to herself the five completed
stanzas of her poem.

It had really come. It was as if a violet had been bom to
actual bloom from the thought, the intangible vision of one.
She wondered at the phrasing, marvelling how those particu-
lar words had come and ranged themselves at her calL She
did not know hov/ she had done it, or whether she herself had
done it at all. She began almost to think she must have read
it before somewhere. Had she just picked it up out of her
memory ? Was it a borrowing, a mimicry, a patchwork ?
. But it was very pretty, very sweet ! It told her own feelings
over to her, with more that she had not known she had felt
or perceived. She read it again from beginning to end in a
whisper. Her mouth was bright with a smile and her eyes
with tears when she had ended.

Asenath Scherman with her light step came in and stood
beside her.

* Won't you tell me f ' the sweet, gracious voice demanded.

Bel Bree looked up.

' I thought rd try,' in fun,' she said, * and it came in real
earnest'

Asenath forgot that the face turned up to hers, with the
smile and the tears and the colour in it, was the face of her
hired servant. A lovely soul, all alight with thought and
gladness, met her through it.

She bent down and touched Bel's forehead with her lady-
lips;

KITCHEN CRAMBO 327

Bel put the little scribbled paper in her hand^ and ran
away up-stairs.

' Will you give it to me, Bel, and let me do what I please
with it ? ' — Mrs. Scherman went to Bel and asked next day.

Bel blushed. She had been a little frightened in the
morning to think of what had happened over-night. She
could not quite recollect all the words of her verses, and she
wondered if they were really as pretty as she had fancied in
the moment of making them.

All she could answer was that Mrs. Scherman .was ^ very
kmd.'

* Then youTl trust me ? '

And Bel, wondering very much, but too shy to question,
said she would.

A few days after that, Asenath called her up-stairs. The
postman had rung five minutes before, and Kate had carried
up a note.

* We were just in time with our little spring song/ she said.
^ ^/w^birds have to sing early ; at least a month beforehand.
See here ! Is this all right V and she put into Bel's hand a
little roughish slip of paper, upon which was printed: —

*THE CITY IN SPRING.

' It is not much that makes me glad :
I hold more than I ever had.
The empty hand may farther reach,
And small, sweet signs aU beauty teach,

* I like the dty in the spring.
It has a hint of everything.
Down in the yard I like to see
The budding of that single tree.

' The little sparrows on the shed ;
The scrap of soft sky overhead ;
The cat upon the sunny wall ;
There's so much meant among them all.

' The dandelion in the cleft
A broken pavement may have left,
Is like the star that, still and sweet,
Shines where the house-tops almost meet.

328 THE OTHER GIRLS

' I like a little ; all the rest
Is somewhere ; and oiir Lord knows best
How the whole robe hath grace for them
Who only touch the garment's hem.'

At the bottom, in small capitals, was the signature, — Bel
Bree.

' I don't understand,* said Bel, bewildered. * What is it ?
Who did it?'

* It is a proof,' said Mrs. Scherman. * A proof-sheet. And
here is another kind of proof that came with it. Your spring
song is going into the May number of " First and Last" '

Mrs. Scherman reached out a slip of paper, printed and
filled in.

It ¥ras a publisher's check for fifteen dollars.

* You see I'm very unselfish, Bel,' she said. * I'm going to
Twork the very way to lose you.'

Bel's eyes flashed up wide at her.

The way to lose her ! Why, nobody had ever got such a
hold upon her before ! The printed verses and the money were
•wonderful surprises, but they were not the surprise that had
gone straight into her heart, and dropped a grapple there.
Mrs. Scherman had believed in her ; and she had kissed her.
Bel Bree would never forget that, though she should live to
sing songs of all the years.

' When you can earn money like this, of course I cannot
expect to keep you in my kitchen,' said Mrs. Scherman, ans-
wering her look.

' I might never do it again in all my life,' sensible Bel
replied. * And I hope youll keep me somewhere. It wouldn't
be any reason, I diink, because one little green leaf has
budded out, for a plant to say that it would not be kept grow-
ing in the ground any longer. I couldn't go and set up a
poem-factory, without a home and a living for the poems to
grow up out of. I'm pleased I can write! ' she exclaimed,
brimming up suddenly with the pleasure she had but half
stopped to realise. ' I thought I could. But I know very well
that the best and brightest things I've ever thought have come
into my head over the ironing-board or the bread-making.
Even at home. And here^ — why, Mrs. Scherman, it's living
in a poem here ! And if you can be in the very foundation

KITCHEN CRAMBO 329

part of such living, you're in the realest place of all, I think.
I don't believe poetry can be skimmed off the top, till it has
risen up from the bottom ! '

' But you ought to come into my parlour^ among my friends !
People would be glad to get you into their parlours, by and
by, when you have made the name you can make. IVe no
business to keep you down. And you don't know yoursel£
You won't stay.'

'Just please wait and see,' said BeL * I haven't a great deal
of experience in going about in parlours ; but I don't think I
should much like it, — that way. I'd rather keep on being the
woman that made the name^ than to run round airing it. I
guess it would keep better.'

* I see I can't advise you. I shouldn't dare to meddle with
inspirations. But I'm proud, and glad, Bel ; and you're my
friend I The rest will sill work out right, somehow.'

' Thank you, dear Mrs. Scherman,' said Bel, her voice full
of feeling. ' And — if you please — will you have the grouse
broiled to-day, or roasted with bread-sauce?'

At that, the two young women laughed out, in each other's
faces.

Bel stopped first.

* It isn't half so funny as it sounds,' she said. * It's part of
the poetry ; the rhyme's inside ; it is to everything. We're
human people : that's the way we get Jt'

And Bel went away, and stuffed the grouse, and grated her
bread-crumbs, and sang over her work, — not out loud with her
lips, but over and over to a merry measure in her mind, —

' Everything comes to its luck some day :
I've got chickens ! What will folks say ? '

' I'm solving more than I set out to do/ Sin Scherman said
to her husband. * Westover was nothing to it I know one
thing, though^ that I'll do next.'

* One thing is reasonable,' said Frank. ' What is it ? '

* Take her to York with us, this summer. Row out on the
river with her. Sit on the rocks, and read and sew, and play
with the children. Show her the ocean. She never saw it in
all her life.'

* How wonderful is " one thing " in the mind of a woman !
It is a germ-cell, that holds all things.'

330 THE OTHER GIRLS \

'Thank you, my dear. If I weren't helping you to soup,
I'd get up and make you a courtesy. But what a grand
privilege it is for a man to live with a woman after he has
found that out! And how cosmical a woman fe^ls herself
when her capacity is recognised ! '

Mrs^ Scherman has told her plan to BeL Kate also has a
plan for the two summer months in which the household must
be broken up.

' I mean to see the mountains myself/ she said, boldly. ' I
don't see why I shouldn't go to the country. There are homes
there that want help, as well as here. I can get my living
where the living goes. That's just where it fays in, different
from other work. Bel knows places where I could get two
dollars a week just for a little helping round ; or I could even
afford to pay board, and buy a little time for resting. I shall
have clothes to make, sSid fix over. It always took all I could
earn, before, to keep me from hand to mouth. I never saw
six months' wages all together in my life. I feel real rich.'

* I will pay you half wages for the two months,' said Mrs.
Scherman, 'if you will come back to me in September. And
next year, if we all keep together, it will be yoiu: turn, if you
like, to go with me.'

Kate feels the spring* in her heart, knowing that she is to
have a piece of the summer. The horse*chestnut tree in the
yard is not a mockery to her. She has a property in every
promise that its great brown buds are making.

' The pleasant weather used to be like the spring suits,' she
said. ' Something making up for other people. Nothing to
me, except more work, with a little difference. Now,
somewhere, the hills are getting green for me ! I'm one of
the meek, tiiat inherit the earth ! '

' You are earning a whole living,' Bel said, reverting to her
favourite and comprehensive conclusion.

'And ytty— somebody has got to run machines,' said
Kate.

' But alltht bodies haven't. That is the mistake we have
been making. That keeps the pay low, and makes it horrid.
There's a imie more room now, where you and I were:
Anyhow, we Yankee girls have a right to our turn at the
home-wheels. If we had been as 'cute as we thought we
were, we should have found it out before.' ,

KITCHEJSi CRAMBO 331

Bel Bree has written half a dozen little poems, at odd
4imes, since the rhyme that began her fortune. Mr. Stal-
worth says they are stamped with her own name, every one ;
breezy, and freshly, delicious. For that very reason, of
course, people will not believe, when they see the name in
print, that it is a real name. It is so much easier to believe
in little tricks of invention, than in things that simply come
to pass by a wonderful, beautiful determination, because they
belong so. They think the poem is a trick of invention, too.
They think that of almost everything that they see in print.
Their increduUty is marvellously credulous ! There is no
end to that which mortals may contrive ; but the limit is
such a measurable one to that which can really be ! We
slip our human leash so easily, and get outside of all creation,
and the * Divinity that shapes our ends,' to shape and to
create, ourselves !

For my part, the more stories I write out, the more I learn '
how, even in fiction, things happen and take relation accord-
ing to some hidden reality ; that we have only to stand by,
and see the shiftings and cpmbinings, and with what care and
honesty we may, to put them down.

If there is anything in this story that you cannot credit, — if
you cannot believe in such a relation, and such a friendship,
and such a mutual service, as Asenath Scherman's and Bel
Bree's, — if you cannot believe that Bel Bree may at this
moment be ironing Mrs. Scherman's damask table-cloths, and
as the ivy-leaf or morning-glory pattern comes out imder the
polish, some beautiful thought in her takes line and shade
under the very rub of labour, and shows itself as it would
have done no other way, and that by and by it will shine on
a printed page, made substantive in words, — ^then, perhaps,
you have only not lived quite long — or deep — enough. There
is a more real and perfect architecture than any that has ever
got worked out in stone, or even sketched on paper.

Neither Boston, nor the world, is * finished' yet. There
may be many a biuning and rebuilding, fiist. Meanwhile, we
will tell what we can see.

And that word sends me back to Bel herself of whom this
present seeing and telling can read and recite no further.

Are you dissatisfied to leave her here? Is it a pity, you

332 THE OTHER GIRLS

think, that the little glimmer of romance in Leicester Place
meant nothing, after all ? There are blind turns in the laby-
rinth of life. Would you have our Bel lost in a blind turn ?

The right and the wrong settled it, as they settle all things.
The right and the wrong are the reins with which we are
guided into the very best, sooner or later ; yes, — sooner and
later. If we will go God's way, we shall have manifold more
in this present world, and in the world to come life ever-
lasting.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

WHAT NOBODY COULD HELP.

Mr. and Mrs. Kirkbright went away to New York on the
afternoon of their marriage.

Miss Euphrasia went up to Brickfields. Sylvie Argenter
was to follow her on Thursday. It had been settled that she
should remain with Desire, who, with her husband, would
reach home on Saturday.

It was a sweet, pleasant spring day, when Sylvie Argenter,
with some last boxes and packages, took the northward train
for Tillington.

She was going to a life of use and service. She was going
into a home ; a home that not only made a fitting place for
her in it, and was perfect in itself, but that, with noble plan
and enlargement, found way to reach its safety and benedic-
tion, and the contagion of its spirit, over souls that would turn
towards it, come under its rule, and receive from it, as their
only shelter and salvation ; over a neighbourhood that was to
be a planting of Hope — a heavenly feudality.

Sylvie's own dreams of a possible future for herself were
only purple lights upon a far horizon.

It seemed a very great way off, any bringing to speech and
result the mute, infrequent signs of what was yet the very real,
secret strength and joy and hope of her girl's heart

She had a thought of Rodney Sherrett that she was sure she
had a right to. That was all she wanted, yet. Of course
Rodney was not ready to marry ; he was too young ; he was

IVHAT NOBODY COULD HELP 333

not much older than she was, and that was very young for a
man. She did not even think about it; she recognised the
whole position without thinking.

She remembered vividly the little way-station in Middlesex,
where he had bought the ferns, that day in last October ; she
thought of him as the train ran slowly alongside the platform
at East Keaton. She wondered if he would not sometimes
come up for a Sunday ; ^o spend it with his uncle and his
Aunt Euphrasia. It was a secret gladness to her that she
was to be where he partly, and very affectionately, belonged.
She was sure she should see him, now and then. Her life
looked pleasant to her, its current setting alongside one
current, certainly, of his.

She sat thinking how he had come up behind her that day
in the drawing-room car, and of all the happy nonsense they
had begun to talk, in such a hurry, together. She was lost in
the imagination of that old surprise, living it over again, re-
membering how it had seemed when she suddenly knew that
it was he who touched her shoulder. Her thought of him
was a backward thought, with a sense in it of his presence
just behind her again, perhaps, if she should turn her head, —
which she would not do, for all the world, to break the spell,
when suddenly, — ^face to face, — through the car- window, she
awoke to his eyes and smile.

' How did you know ? ' she asked, as he came in and took
the seat beside her. Then she blushed to think what she had
taken for granted.

^ I didn't,' he answered ; 'except as a Yankee always knows
things, and a cat comes down upon her feet. I am taking a
week's holiday, and I began it two days sooner, that I might
run up to see Aunt Effie before I go down to Boston to meet
my father. The steamer will be due by Saturday. It is my
first holiday since I went to Arlesbur)'. I'm turning into a
regular old Gradgrind, Miss Sylvie.*

Sylvie smiled at him, as if a regular old Gradgrind were
just the most beautiful and praiseworthy creature a bright,
hearty young fellow could turn into.

/ * You'd better not encourage me,' he said, shaking his head
' It would be a dreadful thing if I should get sordid, you know.

334 THE OTHER GIRLS

I'm not apt to stop half way in anything ; and Fm awfiilly in
earnest now about saving up money/

He had to stop there. He was coming close to motives,
and these he could say nothing about.

But a sudden stop, in speech as in music, is sometimes more
significant than any stricken note.

Sylvie did not speak at once, either. She was thinking what
different reasons there might be, for spending or saving ; how
there might be hardest self-denial in most uncalculating ex^
travagance.

When she found that they were growing awkwardly quiet,
she said, — ^ I suppose the right thing is to remember that there
is neither virtue nor blame in just saving or not saving.'

' My father lost a good deal by the fire,' said Rodney. ^ More
than he thought at first. He is coming home sooner in con-
sequence. I'm very glad I did not go abroad. I should have
been just whirled out of everything, if I had. As it is, I'm in
a place ; I've got a lever planted. It's no time now for a
fellow to look round for a foothold.'

* You like Arlesbury ? ' asked Sylvie. ' I think it must be a
lovely place.'

* Why ? ' said R«dney, taken by surprise.

* From the piece of it you sent me in the winter.'

* Oh ! those ferns ? I'm glad you liked them. There's
something nice and plucky about those little things, isn't
there ?'

It was every word he could think of to reply. He had a
provoked perception that was not altogether nice and plucky
of himself, just then. But that was because the snow was
still unlifted from him. He was under a burden of coldness
and constraint. Somebody ought to come and take it away.
It was time. The spring, that would not be kept back, was
here.

He had not said a word to Sylvie about her mother. How
could he speak of what had left her alone in the world, and
not say that he wanted to make a new world for her ? That
he had longed for it through all her troubles, and that this,
and nothing dse^ was what he was keeping his probation for ?

So they came to TiUington at last, and there had been be-

IVHAT NOBODY COULD HELP 33S

tween. them only little drifting talk of the moment, that told
nothing.

After all, do we not, for a great part, drift through life so,
giving each other crumbs off the loaf that will only seem to
break in that paltry way ? And by and by, when the journey
is over, do we not wonder that we could not have given better
and more at a time ? Yet the crumbs have the leaven and
the sweetness of the loaf in them ; the commonest little way-
side things ' are charged full of whatever is really within us.
God's own love is broken small for us. ' This is my body,
broken for you.'

If life were nothing but what gets phrased and substanced,
the world might as well be rolled up and laid away again in
darkness.

Sylvie had a handful of checks ; Rodney took them from
her, and went out to the end of the platform to find the
boxes. Two vehicles had been driven over from Hill-hope to
meet her; an open spring-waggon for the luggage, and a
chaise-top buggy to convey herself.

Trunks, boxes, and the great padlocked basket were
speedily piled upon the waggon ; then the two men who had
come jumped up together to the front seat of the same, and
Sylvie saw that it was left for her and Rodney to proceed to-
gether for the seven-mile drive.

Rodney came back to her with an alert and felicitous air.
How could he help the falling out of this.^ Of course he
could not ride upon the waggon and leave a farm-boy to
charioteer Sylvie.

' Shall you be afraid of me ? ' he asked, as he tossed in his
valise for a footstool, and carefully bestowed Sylvie's shawl
against the back, to cushion her more comfortably. ^ Do you
suppose we can manage to get over there without running
down a bake-shop ? '

* Or a cider-mill,' said Sylvie, laughing. * You will have to
adapt your exploits to circumstances.'

Up and down, through that beautiful, wild hill-country,
the brown country roadway wound ; now going straight up a
pitch that looked as perpendicular as you approached it as
the side of a bam ; then flinging itseJf down such a steep,
as seemed at. every turn to come to a blank end, and to lead

336 THE OTHER GIRLS

off with a plunge into air ; the water-bars/ridged across at
rough intervals, girding it to the bosom of the mountain, and
breaking the accelerated velocity of the descending wheels.
Sylvie caught her breath more than once ; but she did it
behind shut lips, with only a dilatation of her nostrils. She
was so afraid that Rodney might think she doubted his driving.

The woods were growing tender with fretwork of swelling
buds, and beautiful with bright, young hemlock-tips ; there
was a twittering and calling of birds all through the air ; the
first little breaths and ripples of spring music before the whole
gay, summer burst of song gushed forth.

The fields lay rich in brown seams, where the plough had
newly furrowed them. Farmers were throwing in seed of
barley and spring wheat. The cattle were standing in the low
sunshine, in barn-doors and milking-yards. Sheep were
browsing the little buds on the pasture bushes.

The April day would soon be over. To-morrow might
bring a cold wind, perhaps ; but the winter had been long and
hard ; and after such, we believe in the spring pleasantness
when it comes.

* What a little way bripgs us into a different world ! ' said
Sylvie, as they rode along. ^ Just back there in the city^ you
can hardly believe in these hills.'

Her own words reminded her.

' I suppose we shall find sometime,' she said gently, ' that
the other world is only a little way out.'

^ I've been very sorry for you, Sylvie,' said Rodney. * I
hope you know that'

His slight abruptness told her how the thought had been
ready and pressing for speech, underneath all their casual
talk.

And he had dropped the prefix from her name.

He had not meant to, but he could not go back and put it
on. It was another little falling out that he could not help.
The things he could not help were the most comfortable.

* Mother would have had a very hard time if she had lived/
said Sylvie. ' I am glad for her. It was a great deal better.
And it came so tenderly ! I had dreaded sickness and pain
for her.'

' It has been all hard for you. I hope it will be easier now.
I hope it will always be easier.'

IVHAT NOBODY COULD HELP lyj

* I am going to live with Mrs. Kirkbright/ said Sylvie.
^ Tell me about my new aunt/ sai3 Rodney.

Sylvie was glad to go on about Desire, about the wedding,
about Hill-hope, and the plans for living there.

* I think it will be almost like heaven,' she said. * It will
be home and happiness ; all that people look forward to for
themselves. And yet, right alongside, there will be the work
and the help. It will open right out into it, as heaven does
into earth. Mr. Kirkbright is a grand man.'

*Yes. He's one of the ten-talent people. But I suppose
we can all do something. It is good to have some little one-
horse teams for the light jobs.'

' I never could de Desire,' said Sylvie. * But I am glad to
work with her. I am glad to live one of the little lives.'

There would always be a boy and girl simpleness between
t^ese two, and in their taking of the world together. And
that is good for the world, as well. It cannot be all made of
mountains. If all were high and grand, it would be as if no-
thing were. Heaven itself is not built like that.

' There goes some of Uncle Christopher's stuff, I suppose,'
said Rodney, a while afterwards, as they came to the top of a
long ascent. He pointed to a great loaded wain that stood
with its three powerful horses on the crest of a forward hill.
It was piled high up with tiling and drain-pipe, packed with
straw. The long cylinders showed their round mouths be-
hind, like the mouths of cannon.

^ A nice cargo for these hills, L should think.*

^ They have brakes on the wheels, of course,' said Sylvie.
' And the horses are strong. That must be for the new houses.
They will soon make all those things here. Mr. Kirkbright
has large contracts for brick, already. He has been sending
down specimens. They say the clay is of remarkably fine
quality.'

' We shall have to get by that thing, presently,' said Rodney.
* I hope the horse will take it well.'

' Are you tr)ring to frighten me ? ' asked Sylvie, smiling. ' I'm
used to these roads. I have spent half a summer here, you
know.'

But Rodney knew that it was the ' being used' that would
be the question vnih the horse. He doubted if the little

338 THE OTHER GIRLS

country beast had ever seen drain-pipe before. He had once
driven Red Squirrel past a steam boiler that was being trans-
ported on a truck. He remembered the writhe with which
the animal had doubled himself, and the side spring he had
made. It was growing dusk, now, also. They were not more
than a mile from Brickfield Basin, and the sun was dropping
behind the hills.

' I shall take you out, and lead him by,' he said. ^ I've no
wish to give you another spill. We won't go on through life
in that way.'

It was quite as well that they had only .another mile to go.
Rodney was keeping his promise, but the thread of it was
wearing very thin.

They rode slowly up the opposite slope, then waited, in
their turn, on the top, to give the team time to reach the next
level.

They heard it creak and grind as it wore heavily down,
taking up the whole track with careful zigzag tackings ; they
could see, as it turned, how the pole stood sharp up between
the shoulders of the straining wheel horses, as their haunches
pressed out either way, and their backs hoUowed, and their
noses came together, and the driver touched them dexterously
right and left upon their flanks to bring them in again.

' Uncle Kit has a good teamster there,' said Rodney.

Just against the foot of the next rise, they overtook him.
The gray nag that Rodney drove pricked his e^ and stretched
his head up, and began to take short, cringing steps, as they
drew near the formidable, moving mass.

Rodney jumped out, and keeping eye and hand upon him,
helped down Sylvie also. Then he threw the long reins over
his arm, and took the horse by the bridle.

The animal made a half parenthesis of himself, curving skit-
tishly, and watching jealously, as he went by the frightsome
pile.

^ You see it was as well riot to risk it,' Rodney said, as Sylvie
came up with him beyond. ' He would have had us down
there among the blackberry vines. He's all right now. Will
you get in ? '

^Let us walk on to the top,' said Sylvie. ' It is so pleasant
to feel one's feet upon the ground.'

WHAT NOBODY COULD HELP 339

They kept on, accordingly ; the slow team rumbling behind
them. At the top, was a wide, beautiful level ; oak-trees and
maples grew along the roadside, and fields stretched out along
a table land to right and left Before them, lying in the golden
mist of twilight, was a sea of distant hill-tops^ — purple and
shadow-black and gray. The sky bent down its tender,
mellow sphere, and touched them softly.

Sylvie stood still, with folded hands, and Rodney stopped
the horse. A rod or two back, just at the edge of the level,
the loaded waggon had stopped also.

^ Hills, — ^and the sunset, — ^and stillness,' said Sylvie. ' They
always seem like heaven.'

Rodney stood with his right hand, from which fell the looped
reins, reached up and resting on the saddle.

' I never saw a sight like that before,' he said.

While they looked, the evening star trembled out through
the clear saffron, above the floating mist that hung among the
hills.

' Oh, they never can help it ! ' exclaimed Sylvie, suddenly.

* Help it ? Who ? ' asked Rodney, wondering.

' Beginning again. Growing good. Those people who are
coming up to Hill-hope. There's a man coming, with his
wife ; a young man, who got into bad ways, and took to drink-
ing. Mr. Vireo has been watching and advising him so long !
He married them, five years ago, and they have two little
children. The wife is delicate; she has worried through
everything. She has taken in working-men's washing, to earn
the rent ; and he had a good trade, too ; he was a plasterer.
He has really tried ; but it was no use in the city ; it was all
around him. And he lost character and chances ; the bosses
wouldn't have him, he said. When he was trying most, some-
times, they wouldn't believe in him ; and then there . would
come idle days, and he would meet old companions, and get
led off, and then there would be weeks of misery. Now he is
coming away from it all. There is a little cottage ready, with
a garden ; the little wife is so happy ! He caf^t get it here ;
and he will have work at his trade, and will learn brickmaking.
Do you know, I think a place like this, where such work is
doing, is almost better than heaven, where it is all done,
Rodney ! '•

340 THE OTHER GIRLS

She spoke his name, as he had hers a little while ago, with-
out thinking. He turned his face towards her with a look
which kindled into sudden light at that last word, but which
had warmed all through before with the generous pathos of
what she told him, and the earnest, simple way of it.

* I've found out that even in our own affairs, making is better
than ready-made,' he said. * This last year has been the best
year of my life. If my father had given me fifty thousand
dollars, and told me I might — have all my own way with it, —
I shouldn't have thanked him as much to-day, as I do. But
I wish that steamer were in, and he were here! He has
got something which belongs to me, and I want him to give it
back.'

After enunciating this little riddle, Rodney changed hands
with his reins, and faced about towards the vehicle, reaching
his other to Sylvie.

^ You had better jump in,' he said ; and there was a tone
and an inflection at the pause, as if another word, that
would have been tenderly spoken, hung refrained upon it
* We must get well ahead of that old catapult'

They drove on rapidly along the level ; then they came to
the long, gradual slope tibat brought them down into Brick-
fields.

To the right, just before reaching the Basin, a turn struck
off that skirted round, partly ascending again, until it fell into
the Cone Hill road and so led direct to Hill-hope.

They could see the buildings, grouped picturesquely against
Tocks and pines and down against the root of the green hilL
They had all been painted .of a light gray or slate colour,
with red roofs.

They passed on, down into the shadows, where trees were
thick and dark. A damp, rich smell of the woods was about
them, — a different atmosphere from the breath of the hill-top.
They heard the tinkle of little unseen streams, and the far-off
foaming plunge of the cascades.

Suddenly, there came a sound behind them like the rush of
an avalandie ; a noise that seemed to fill up all the space of
the air, and to gather itself down towards them on every side
alike.

* Oh, Rodney, turn ! ' cried Sylvie.

JVHAT NOBODY COULD HELP 341

But there was a horrible second in which he could not
know how to turn.

He did not stop to look, even. He sprang, with one leap,
he knew not how, — over step or dasher, — to the horse's head.
He seized him by the bridle, and pulled him off the road,
into a thicket of bush-branches, in a hollow rough with
stones.

The wheels caught fast ; Rodney clung to the horse, who
tried to rear ; Sylvia sat still on the seat, sloped with the
sharp cant of the half-overturned vehicle.

There was only a single instant Down, with the awful
roar of an earthquake, came crashing swift and headlong,
passing within a hand's breadth of their wheel, the enormous,
toppling, loaded team; its three strong horses in a wild,
plunging gallop ; heels, heads, haunches, one dark, fiantic,
struggling tumble and rush. An instant more, of paralyzed
breathlessness, and then a thundering fall, that made the
ground quiver under their feet ; then a stiUness more sud-
denly dreadful than the noise. A great cloud of dust rose
slowly up into the air, and showed dimly in the dusky light

The gray horse quieted, cowed by the very terror and the
hush. Sylvie slipped down from the tilting buggy, and found
her feet upon a stone.

Rodney reached out one hand, and she came to his side.
He put his arm around her, and drew her close.

' My darling little Sylvie !' he said..

She turned he;: face, and leaned it down upon his shoulden

* Oh, Rodney, the poor man is killed !'

But as they stood so, a figure came towards them, over the
high water-bar below which they had stopped.

* For God's sake, is anybody hurt?' asked a strange, hoarse
voice with a tremble in it

^Nobody!'

' Oh, are you the driver ? I thought you must be killed ! How
thankfiil ! ' — ^And Sylvie sobbed on Rodney's shoulder.

' Can I help you?' asked the man.

'Mo, look after your horses.' And the man went on, down
into the dust, where the wreck was.

'Well go, and send help to you,' shouted Rodney.

342 THE OTHER GIRLS

Then he backed the gray horse carefully out upon the road
again.
'Will you dare get in?' he asked of Sylvie.

* I do not think we had better. How can we tell how it is
down there ? We may not be abfe to pass.'

* It is below the turn, I think. But come, — we^U walk.'
He took the bridle again, and gave his other hand to Sylvie.

Holding each other so, they went along.

When they came to the turn, they could See, just beyond^
the mass of ruin ; the great waggon, three wheels in the air,
—one rolled away into the ditch; the broken freight, flung all
across the road, and lying piled about the waggon. One horse
was dead, — buried underneath; Another- lay motionless;'
making horrid moans. The teamster was freeing the third —
the leader, which stood safe — ^from chains and harness.

Leading him, the man came up with Rodney and Sylvie, as
they t?umed into the side road.

* I knew you were just ahead, when it happened. I thought
you were gone for certain.'

'There was a Mercy over us all ! ' said Sylvie, with swee^
tremulous intenseness.

The rough man lifted his hand to his bare head. Rodney
clasped tighter the little fingers that lay within his own.

* What did happen ? ' he asked;

* The brake-rod broke ; the pole-»strap gave way ; it was all
in a heap in a minute. I saw it was no use ; I had to jump.
And then I thought of you. I'm glad you saw me, sir. You
know I was sober.'

' I know you were sober, and managing most skilfully. I
had been saying that'
' Thank you, sir. It's an awful job.'

* Hark ! ' said Sylvie. ' There's the man with the trunks.'
' I forgot all about him,' said Rodney.

' That's a fact/ said the teamster. * Turn down here, to
let him by. Hallo ! '

' Hallo ! Come to grief?'

' We just have, then. Go ahead, will you, and bring back
— something to shoot with^ he added, in a low^ tone, and
coming close, — ^remembering Sylvie; * I had a crow-bar, but
if s lost in the jumble. I'll stay here, now.'

HILL-HOPE 343

' The waggon drove by, rapidly. The man led his horse down
by the wall, to wait there. Sylvie and Rodney, hand in hand,
walked on.

Sylvie shivered with the horrible excitement ; her teeth
chattered ; a nervous trembling was taking hold of her.

Eodney put his arm roimd her again. 'Don't tremble, dear,'
he said.

' Oh, Rodney ! What were we kept alive for V «

' For each other,' whispered Rodney.

CHAPTER XXXV.

HILL-HOPE.

They were sitting together, the next day, on the rock below
the cascade, in the warm sunshine.

Aunt Euphrasia knew all about it ; Aunt Euphrasia had let
them go down there together. She was as content as Rodney
in the thing that could not now be helped.

* IVe broken my promise,' said Rodney to Sylvie. 'I
agreed with my father that I wouldn't be engaged for two
years.'

*Why, we aren't engaged, — yet, — are we ' asked Sylvie,
with bewitching surprise.

* I don't know,' said Rodney, his old, merry, mischievous
twinkle coming in the comers of his eyes, as he flashed them
up at her. * I think we've got the refusal of each other ! '

'Well We'll keep it so. We'll wait. You shall not break
any promise for me,' said Sylvie, still sweetly obtuse.

*• I'm satisfied with that way of looking at it,' said Rodney,
laughing out * Unless — you mean to be as cunning about
everything else, Sylvie. In that case, I don't know ; I'm
afraid you'd be dangerous.'

* I wonder if I'm always going to be dangerous to you,' said
Sylvie, gravely, taking up the word. ' I always get you into
an accident.'

* When we take matters quietly, the way they were meant
to go, we shall leave off being hustled, I suppose,^ said Rodney

344 THE OTHER GIRLS

just as gravely. ' There has certainly been intent in the way
we have been — thrown together ! '

* I don't believe you ought to say such things, Rodney, —
yet ! You are talking just as if — ^

* We weren't waiting. Oh, yes ! I am glad you invented
that little temporary arrangement. But it's a difficult one to
carry out. I shall be gladder when my father comes. I'm
tired of being Casabianca. I don't see how we can talk at
all. Mayn't I tell you about a little house there is at Aries-
bury, with a square porch and a three-windowed room over it,
where anybody could sit and sew — among plants and things —
and see all up and down the road, to and from the mills ? A
little brown house, with turf up to the door-stone, and only a
hundred dollars a year ? Mayn't I tell you how much I've
saved up, and how I like being a real working man with a
salary, just as you liked being one of the Other Girls ? '

' Yes ; you may tell me that ; that last,' said Sylvie, softly.
' You may tell me anything you like about yourself.'

* Then I must tell you that I never should have been good
for anything if it hadn't been for you.'

* Oh, dear ! ' said Sylvie. ^ I don't see how we can talk. It
keeps coming back again. I've had all those plants kept safe
that you sent me, Rodney,' she began, briskly, upon a fresh
tack.

* Those very ivies ? Ah, the little three- windowed room !'

' Rodney ! I didn't think you were so unprincipled ! ' said
Sylvie, getting up. * I wouldn't have come down here, if I
had known there was a promise ! I shall certainly help you
keep it I shall go away.'

She turned round, and met a gentleman coming down along
the slope of the smooth, broad rock.

' Mr. Sherrett !— Rodney ! '

Rodney sprang to his feet.

' My boy ! How are you ? '

* Father ! When — ^how — did you come ? '

' I came to Tillington by the late train last night, and have
just driven over. I went to Arlesbury yesterday.'

* But the steamer ! She wasn't due till Sunday. You sailed
the ninth f '

' No. I exchanged passages with a friend who was detained

HILL-HOPE 345

in London. I came by the Palmyra. But you don't let me
speak to Sylvie.'

He pronounced her name with a kind emphasis ; he had
turned and taken her hand, after the first grasp of Rodney's.

* Father, I've broken my promise ; but I don't think
anybody could have helped it. You couldn't have helped it
yourself.'

' I've seen Aunt Euphrasia. I've been here almost an hour.
I have thanked God that nothing is broken but the promise,
Rodney ; and I think the term of that was broken only because
the intent had been so faithfully kept. I'm satisfied with one
year. I believe all the rest of your years will be safer and
better for having this little lady to promise to, and to help you
keep your word.'

And he bent down his. splendid gray head, with the dark
eyes looking softly at her, and kissed Sylvie on the forehead.

Sylvie stood still a moment, with a very lovely, happy, shy
look upon her downcast face ; then she lifted it up quickly,
with a clear, earnest expression.

' I hope you think, Mr. Sherrett, — I hope you feel sure,' —
she said, * that I wouldn't have been engaged to Rodney while
there was a promise ? '

'Not more than you could possibly help,' said Mr. Sherrett>
smiling.

* Not the very least little bit ! ' said Sylvie, emphatically ;
and then they aU three laughed together.

I don't know why everything should have happened as it
did, just in these few days ; except — that this book was to be
all printed by the twenty-third of April, and it all had to go in.

That very afternoon there came a letter to Miss Euphrasia
from Mr. Dakie Thayne.

He had found Mr. Farron Saftleigh in Dubuque ; he had
pressed him close upon the matter of his transactions with
Mrs. Aigenter ; he had obtained a hold upon him in some
other business that had come to his knowledge in the course
of his inquiries at Denver : and the result had been that Mr.
Farron Saftleigh had repurchased of him the railroad bonds
and the deeds of Donnowhair land, to the amount of five
thousand dollars ; which sum he enclosed in his own check,
payable to the order of Sylvia Argenter.

346 THE OTHER GIRLS

Knowing, morally, some things that I have not had oppor-
timity to investigate in detail, and cannot therefore set down
as verities, — I am privately convinced that this little business
agency on the part of Dakie Thayne was, — ^^in some propor-
tion at least,— ra piece of a horse-shoe !

If you have not happened to read *Real Folks,' you will
not know what that means. If you have, you will now get a
glimpse of how it had come to Ruth and Dakie that their
horse-shoe, — their little section of the world's great magnet of
loving relation, — might be made. Indeed, I do know, and
can tell you, the very words Ruth said to Dakie one day when
they had been married just three weeks.

* I've always thought, Dakie, that if ever I had money, — or
if ever I came to advise or help anybody who had, and who
wanted to do good with it, — that there would be one special
way I should like to take. I should like to sit up in the
branches, and shake down fruit into the laps of some people
who never would know where it came from and wouldn't take
it if they did ; though they couldn't reach a single bough to
pick for themselves. I mean nice, unlucky people ; people
who always have a hard time, and need to have a good one ;
and are obliged in many things to pretend they do. There
are a good many who are willing and anxious to help the very
poor, but I think there's a mission waiting for somebody
among the pinched-and-smiling people. Pve been a Ruth
Pinch myself, you see ; and I know all about it, Mr. John
Westlock!'

So I know they looked about for crafty little chances to piece
out and supplement small ways and means ; to put little traps
of good luck in the way for people to stumble upon, — and to
act the part generally of a human limited providence, which
is a better thing than fairy godmothers, or enchanted cats,
or frogs imder the bridge at the world's end, in which guise
the gentle charities clothed themselves in the old elf fables,
that were told, I truly believe, to be lived out in real doing, as
much as the New Testament Parables were. And a great
deal of the manifold responsibility that Mr. Dakie Thayne
undertakes, as broker or agent in the concerns of others, is
undertaken with a deliberate ulterior design of this sort I
think Mr. Farron Safdeigh probably was made to pay about

HILL-HOPE^ 347

three thousand dollars .of the. sum he had wheedled Mrs. Ar**
genter out of. Dakie Thayne makes things 3rield of them^
selves as far as they will ; he brings capacity and character to
bear upon his ends as well as money ; he knows his money
would not last for ever if he did not.

Mr. Sherrett and Rodney stayed at Hill-hope over thet
Sunday. Mr. and Mrs. Kirkbright arrived on Saturday
morning. *

There was a first home-service in the Chapel-Room that
looked out upon the Rock, and into which the conservatory
already gave its greenness and sweetness, that first Sunday
after Easter.

Christopher Kirkbright read the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel
for the day ; the Prayer, that God * who had g^ven his only
Son to die for our sins^ and to rise again for our justification^
would grant them so to put away the leaven of malice and
wickedness, that they might always serve Ham in pureness
and truth;' the Assurance of *the victory that overcometb
the worid, even our faith in the Son of God/ who came ' not
by water only, but by water and blood ; ' and that ^the spirit
and the water and the blood agree in one,'-*<-in our redemption ;
the Story of that First Day of the week, when Jesus came back
to liis disciples, after his resurrection, and said, ^ Peace be
unto yoM^ showing them his hands and his side,

• He spoke to them of the Blood of Christ, which is the Pain
of God for every one of us ; which touches the quick of our own
souls where their life is joined to his or else is dead. Of how^
when we fed it, we know that this Divine Pain comes down
that we may die by it to sin, and live again to justification, in
pureness and truth ; that the Lord shows us his wounds for
us, and waits to pronounce his peace upon us ; because He
suffers till we are at peace. That so his goodness leads us to
repentance ; that the blood of suffering, and the water of
cleansing, and the spirit of life renewed, agree in one ; that if
we receive the one, — if we bear the pain with which He touches
us, — ^we shall also receive the other.

* Bear, therefore, whatever crucifixion you have to bear, be-
cause of your wrong-doing. We, indeed, suffer justly ; but
He, who hath done nothing amiss, suffers at our side. '' If we
are planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall

348 THE OTHER GIRLS

also be in the likeness of his resurrection ; " our old life is cruci-
fied with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed. " We
are dead unto sin/ but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ
our Lord." '

Mary Moxall was there, clothed and in her right mind ; her
baby on her lap. Good Mrs. Crumford, the mother-matron,
sat beside her. Andrew Dorray, the plasterer, and his wife,
Annie, were there. Men and women from the farmhouse and
the cottages, dressed in their Sabbath best ; and little chil-
dren, looking in with steadfast, wondering eyes, at the open
conservatory door, upon the vines and blooms steeped in
sunshine, and mingling their sweet odours with the scent of
the warm, moist earth in which they grew.

They would all have pinks and rosebuds to carry away
with them, to remember the Sunday by, and to be for ever
linked, in their tender colour and fragrance, with the dim
apprehension of somewhat holy. There would be an associa-
tion for them of the heavenly things unseen with the
heavenliest things that are seen.

Mr. Kirkbright had given especial pains and foresight to
the filling of this little greenhouse. He meant that there,
should be a summer pleasantness at HiU-hope from the very
first.

After dinner he and Desire walked up and down the long^
front upper gallery upon which their own rooms and their
guest-rooms opened, and whence the many windows on the
other hand gave the whole outlook upon Farm and Basin, the
smoking kilns, the tidy little homes already established, and
the buildings that were making ready for more.

•Christopher Kirkbright told his wife of many things he hoped
to accomplish. He pointed out here and there what might
be done. Over there was a maple wood where they would
have sugar-makings in the spring. There was a quarry in
yonder hill. Down here, through that left hand hollow and
ravine, would run their bit of railroad.

' A little world of itself might almost grow up here on these
two hundred acres/ he said.

* And for the home, — you must make that large and beautiful,
Desire ! We are not shut up here to guard and rule a peni-
tentiary; we are to bring the best and sweetest and most

HILL-HOPE 349

beautiful life possible to us, close to the life we want to help.
There is room for them and us ; there is opportunity for their
world and ours to touch each other and grow towards one.
We must have friends here, Daisy ; ' (she let him call her
* Daisy ; ' had he not the right to give her a new name for
her new life ?) — ' friends to enjoy the delicious summers, and to
make the long winters full of holiday times. You must invent
delights as well as uses : delights that will be uses. It must
be so for your sake ; I must have my Desire satisfied. —
content, in ways that perhaps she herself would not find out
her need in.'

^ Is not' your Desire satisfied? '

' What a blessed little double name you have I Yes, Daisy,
the very Desire of my heart has come to me ! '

Rodney and Sylvie walked down again to the Cascade
Rock, and finished their talk together,— this April number of
it, I mean, — about the brown house and the three-windowed,
sunny room, and the grass-plot where they would play
croquet, and the road to the mills that was shaded all the
way down, so that she could walk with her bonnet off to meet
him when he was coming up to tea. About the ivies that the
*good Miss Goodwyns' had kept safe and thriving at Dor-
bury, and the furniture that Sylvie had stored in a loft in the
Bank Block. How pretty the white frilled curtains would be
in the porch room !

* And the interest of the five thousand dollars will be all I
shall ever want to spend for anything ! '

*We shall be quite rich people, Sylvie. We must take
care not to grow proud and snobbish.'

* We had much better walk than ride, Rodney. I think
that is the riddle that all our spills have been meant to
read us.'

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»» »» *i 6s.

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List of Publications, 13

— — — --

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14 Sampson Low and Go's

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List of Publications. 1 7

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z. Little Sunshine's Holiday,
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Grant, General, Life of. ^vo. i2s,

Guizot's History of France. Translated by Robert Black.

Royal 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. Vol. z, cloth' extra, a^s. ; in Parts,-
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Guyon (Mad.) Life. By Upham. Third Edition. Crown
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Method of Prayer. Foolscap, u.

ALL (£. H.) The Great West; Handbook for
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Harrington (J.) Pictures of Saint George's Chapel, Wind-
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Harrington's Abbey and Palace of Westminster. Photo-
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Harper's Handbook for Travellers in Europe and the
East. New EUlition. Post Svo. Morocco tuck, z/. z.r.

Hawthorne (Mrs. N.) Notes in England and Italy. Crown

8vo. los. 6d,

Hayes (Dr.) Cast Away in the Cold; an Old Man's Story

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Hazlitt (William) The Round Table; the Best Essays of
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Healy (M.) Lakeville; or, Shadow and Substance. A^

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Henderson (A.) Latin Proverbs and' Quotations ; with

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" A very handsome volume in its typographical externals, and a very
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Hearth Ghosts. By the Author of * Gilbert Rugge.' 3 Vols.

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Hitherto. By the Author of ** The Gayworthys." New Edition.
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Hoge — Blind Bartimseus. Popular edition, is.

Holmes (Oliver W.) The Guardian Angel ; a Romance.
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Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. i2mo. i.r. ; Illus-
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Songs in Many Keys. Post 8vo. 7j. 6d.

Mechanism in Thought and Morals. i2mo. u. 6d.

Home Theatre (The), by Mary Healy. Small post 8vo.
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Hoppin (Jas. M.) Old Country, its Scenery, Art, and
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Howell (W. D.) Italian Journeys. i2mo. cloth. &r. 6d,

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Day by the Fire. Fcap. 6s. 6d,

Huntington (J.D., D.D.) Christian Believing. Crown Svo.
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Hymnal Companion to Book of Common Prayer. See

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Is it True ? If eing Tales Curious and Wonderful. Small post
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(Forming vol. 4 of the " John Halifax " Series of Girls' Books.)

List of Publicatixms, 21

LLUSTRATED BOOKS, suitable for Christmas,
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Anderson's Fairy Tales. 25J.

Werner (Carl) Nile Sketches. 3/. lor.

Goethe's Faust, illustrations by P. Konewka. xof. td.

Art, Pictorial and Industrial. Vol. I. 31J. 6</.

St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

Favourite English Poems. 21^.

The Abbey and Palace of Westminster. 5/. 5*.

Adventures of a Young Naturalist. 7^. 6<^

Blackburn's Art in the Mountains. i2f.

Artists and Arabs, ^s. td.

Normandy Picturesque, ids.

Travelling in Spain. i6f.

The Pyrenees, i&r.

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Sauzay's Wonders of Glass Making 12J. dd.

Fletcher and Kidder's Brazil. i8j-.

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Book of Preserves. lor. 6d.

/»

Heber (Bishop) Hymns. Illustrated edition, ^s. 6d,
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Milton's Paradise Lost. (Martin's plates). 3/. 13J. 6d.
Palliser (Mrs.) History of Lace. 21s.

Historic Devices, &c. 21J.

Red Cross Knight (The). 25^.
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Index to the Subjects of Books published in the United^
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In the Tropics. Post Svo. 6s,

ACK HAZARD, a Story of Adventure by J.' T.
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cloth. \In theprms.

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Kingston (W. H. G.) Ben Burton, or Bom and Bred at

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Like unto Christ. A new translation of the *' De Imitatione
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Little Gerty, by the author of ** The Lamplighter. Fcap. 6d,

Little Men. See Alcott.

Little Preacher. 32mo. is.

Little Women. See Alcott.

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Log of my Leisure Hours. By an Old Sailor. Cheaper

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,Longfellow (H. W.) The Poets and Poetry of Europe.

New Edition. Svo. cloth, x/. rs,

Loomis (Elias). Recent Progress of Astronomy. Post Svo.
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;Lost amid the Fogs : Sketches of Life in Newfoundland.
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List of Publications. 23

Xrow's Copyright Cheap Editions of American Authors,
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9. Hedged In. By Elizabeth Phrlps.

.xa An Old- Fashioned Girl. By Louisa M. Alcott.
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The Gates Ajar. (The original English Edition.)

Who is He?

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Handbook to the Charities of London, for the year

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Ludlow (FitzHugh). The Heart of the Continent. 8vo

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Lyne (A. A.) The Midshipman's Trip to Jerusalem.

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